Binary package hint: network-manager
The patch package "network-manager-openvpn_0.3.2svn2342-0ubuntu3.diff.gz" contains 05-debian_backend.patch which in turn contains the following diff lines:
@@ -679,7 +734,10 @@
*/
gboolean nm_system_should_modify_resolv_conf (void)
{
- return TRUE;
+ if (g_find_program_in_path(RESOLVCONF) != NULL)
+ return FALSE;
+ else
+ return TRUE;
}
This means that if the resolvconf package is installed, then network_manager does not do it's internal magic as it is expecting resolvconf to look after the changes. However, if an openvpn connection is being managed by network_manager, then the DNS settings being pushed by the server are effectively ignored if resolvconf is installed as there are not resolvconf specific hooks for the openvpn stuff.
I am not sure which package I should file this against. I chose network_manager as it is the above patch that prevents network_manager from "manually" modifying DNS entries. However, this could also be a problem with network-manager-openvpn not correctly spawning resolvconf if installed. It seems that network-manager is assuming resolvconf looks after all DNS stuff while the network-manager-openvpn is not leveraging resolvconf, so nothing gets done.
By the way, if resolvconf is not installed, then this all functions as expected and the openvpn DNS settings are correctly pushed to the client and /etc/resolv.conf is updated.
Looking further into the code, it looks like all VPN clients that can pass along nameserver information will suffer from this problem.
In src/vpn-
I am not sure of the cleanest way to fix this problem. There is currently no way to indicate to to network-manager that it is responsible for setting DNS settings, even if resolvconf is installed. It would be nice for a parameter to be added to the "config" data that indicates that network-manager should call resolvconf if the parameter is set and if resolvconf is installed. In other words, there should be three possibilities:
1. resolvconf is not installed, always modify /etc/resolv.conf manually
2. resolvconf is installed and another element, like dhclient, will look after calling resolvconf
3. resolvconf is installed and network-manager must call resolvconf OR modify /etc/resolv.conf manually.
It is case 3 that is currently not handled.