man7.org > Linux > man-pages

Linux/UNIX system programming training

systemd.dns-delegate(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | [DELEGATE] SECTION OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

SYSTEMD.DNS-DELEGATE(5)    systemd.dns-delegate   SYSTEMD.DNS-DELEGATE(5)

NAME         top

       systemd.dns-delegate - DNS Server Delegation Configuration

SYNOPSIS         top

           /etc/systemd/dns-delegate.d/*.dns-delegate
           /run/systemd/dns-delegate.d/*.dns-delegate
           /usr/local/lib/systemd/dns-delegate.d/*.dns-delegate
           /usr/lib/systemd/dns-delegate.d/*.dns-delegate

DESCRIPTION         top

       *.dns-delegate files may be used to delegate DNS lookups in
       specific domains to specific DNS servers. These files are read by
       systemd-resolved.service(8). Each such file defines a combination
       of one or more DNS servers and one or more DNS domains. Each such
       definition synthesizes a DNS lookup scope that ensure lookups
       below the specified domains are sent to the specified DNS servers,
       possibly in addition to any per-interface scopes and the global
       scope that systemd-resolved maintains anyway.

[DELEGATE] SECTION OPTIONS         top

       DNS=
           Takes one or more DNS server specifications, in the same
           syntax as the option of the same name in resolved.conf(5).

           Added in version 258.

       Domains=
           Takes one or more domain name specifications, in the same
           syntax as the option of the same name in resolved.conf(5).

           Added in version 258.

       DefaultRoute=
           Takes a boolean value, defaults to off. Controls whether this
           DNS server is a candidate for looking up records for which no
           better route exists.

           Added in version 258.

       FirewallMark=
           Takes a 32 bit unsigned integer value. Controls the firewall
           mark of packets generated by the socket used to make DNS
           requests for this DNS delegate. This can be used in the
           firewall logic to filter packets from this socket. This sets
           the SO_MARK socket option. See iptables(8) for details.

           Added in version 260.

EXAMPLES         top

       Example 1.

           # /etc/systemd/dns-delegate.d/foobar.dns-delegate
           [Delegate]
           DNS=203.0.113.47
           Domains=foobar.com
           FirewallMark=42

       This ensures lookups of "foobar.com" and any domains below it are
       directed to DNS server 203.0.113.47 and any packets related to
       this lookup have a firewall mark set to 42.

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd(1), systemd-resolved.service(8), resolved.conf(5),
       resolvectl(1)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
       manager) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2026-05-24.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2026-05-24.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

systemd 261~rc1                                   SYSTEMD.DNS-DELEGATE(5)

Pages that refer to this page: systemd.directives(7),  systemd.index(7),  systemd-resolved.service(8)

HTML rendering created 2026-05-25 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.

For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here.

Hosting by jambit GmbH.

Cover of TLPI