2026-09-05 10:27:11 +00:00
1 changed files with 35 additions and 0 deletions
@@ -277,6 +277,41 @@ joins, and a module that did not would be one whose containers cannot reach anyt
 somebody starts by hand is not the mesh's to configure, and reaching into every container on a
 machine — declared or not — is what a nameserver in `resolv.conf` would be for.

+### The resolver, built
+
+*2026-08-31.* **A service is reached at `<service>.<node>.internal`** — the first label is the
+service, the rest is the node — so what resolves is *anything under a node's name*, going to that
+node. What routes it once it arrives is a proxy's, and stays separate.
+
+**The mesh writes the data and runs no daemon.** One wildcard per machine, from the same set that
+writes the hosts file. A resolver is third-party software and runs *on* the mesh rather than being
+*of* it: the mesh has no business shipping one, choosing which one, or knowing its configuration
+language. Swapping dnsmasq for unbound changes that module and nothing in the control plane.
+
+**Two roles, two claims, because they are different things.** systemd-resolved cannot answer a
+wildcard at all — it routes the mesh's suffix to something that can. Treating serving and asking
+as one role produces a module that cannot work.
+
+| | claims | |
+|---|---|---|
+| serving | `the-dns-port` | answers the wildcards |
+| asking | `the-resolver-configuration` | decides what the machine asks |
+
+So *which* resolver is not a mesh-wide decision. One machine can use what systemd already owns and
+another can run dnsmasq, and two of either on one machine is refused rather than fought over.
+
+**Two things a resolver must not do**, both found by a machine rather than by reasoning:
+
+- **Take an address something else holds.** systemd-resolved holds `127.0.0.53` *and* `127.0.0.54`.
+- **Read `resolv.conf` for its upstreams.** Whatever points a machine at the mesh writes the
+  resolver's own address there, so it becomes its own upstream and every query it cannot answer
+  loops until its receive queue fills. It needs no upstream: only the mesh's suffix is routed to
+  it.
+
+*Checked on two machines, through the path an application takes — nsswitch, files, then DNS —
+because the module deciding what the machine asks is half of what is being tested and only that
+path goes through it.*
+
 **That is now the second reason to want a resolver**, and it is a different one from the trigger
 above: