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The fact that linux (and OSX and Windows) support mechanisms of name resolution other than resolv.conf has zero bearing on dig's previous utility as a resolv.conf diagnostic tool, zero bearing on the fact that systemd changed the behavior of a nonrecursive query for root zone NS records, and zero bearing on the fact that Poettering insisted that this wasn't a problem instead of fixing it.



dig is not a resolv.conf diagnostic tool, it's a DNS lookup utility. I don't think it even parses the full syntax of resolv.conf. Heck, it doesn't even consider multiple nameserver statements.


It worked before, they broke it, and as usual the response is an egregious "fuck you" and a queue of apologists castigating the aggrieved that they were Doing It Wrong All Those Years And They Must In Future Conform To Only The Approved Way.

This is why people loathe systemd.


Something which is wrong but has mostly worked by accident is still wrong. A tool which parses a config file it does not own and whose semantics do not necessarily match what the tool expects is wrong. The blame for any breakage which results is clearly on the tool in question.

Lennart has done more to improve Linux than all of his detractors on HN combined in no small part because he is willing to break broken things and force them to be fixed.

If the people whining about Lennart/systemd spent half as much time fixing their shit as they did writing angry comments on the internet the Linux ecosystem would be in much better shape.


It wasn’t broken, didn’t need fixing, and the config files existed before systemd did, so claiming they “belong to a tool” really just exemplifies the arrogance implicit in the whole project.

As for contributing, no, you don’t get to piss in the well and then demand everyone drinks from it.


I never claimed systemd owns resolv.conf so the fact that the latter predates the former is irrelevant. resolv.conf is to be used to implement the resolver API. Any tool which uses resolv.conf for any other purpose does so at its own peril.


yep this is the only way we're going to be able to drag linux into future, where maybe one day it actually will be year of the linux desktop


That’s beside my point. Dig isn’t a tool for diagnosing resolv.conf. It’s a tool for querying and diagnosing name server responses. I have no opinion on systemd nor its maintainer.

Meta: this entire thread is even relevant to the story. Some folks just wanted to complain about systemd. It doesn’t make for interesting reading and lowers the discussion quality here.


Fortunately for the rest of us, no-one actually gets to own a thread and gatekeeper the discussion.




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