DNS over HTTPS servers

DNS, since its inception, has been unencrypted on UDP/53, and later TCP/53, making it susceptible to snooping attacks. For additional information on the available protocols that can be used to address this vulnerability, see Domain name resolution#Privacy and security. This article covers two of the three available protocols for DNS servers with the necessary proxy configuration to provide both DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over TLS (DoT). Multiple DoH utilities are available in the AUR including coredns^AUR, dns-over-https, doh-proxy^AUR, and python-doh-proxy^AUR. Which of the available solutions is appropriate, depends on the needs of your network.

coredns^AUR provides both a caching, non-authoritative DNS server, and DoH services (citation needed).

dns-over-https, doh-proxy^AUR, and python-doh-proxy^AUR all provide an HTTP listener for proxying behind your existing HTTPS server, and a stub resolver to forward regular queries on UDP/53 to a secure DNS server. Additionally, both doh-proxy^AUR and python-doh-proxy^AUR provide a standalone HTTPS/2 server.

DoH server/proxy software configuration

coreDNS

Install the coredns^AUR package.

You can use coreDNS as DoH/DoT/gRPC DNS server and/or DoT proxy. Default configuration file should be located at /etc/coredns/Corefile.

The example of simple configuration file looks like this:

/etc/coredns/Corefile

''protocol://domain:port'' {
    forward ''domain'' ''forward_to''
    tls_servername ''domain_of_dot_server''
    tls ''cert_path'' ''key_path''
}

First string is listener, you can use next protocols: dns:// for plain DNS protocol, for DNS over HTTPS, for DNS over TLS and for gRPC (see ). If you leave protocol empty (e.g. example.com:53), dns:// will be choose as default. The is for matching queried domains, you can use specific one (e.g. dns: //example.com: 53) or use . (e.g. dns: //.: 53) to match all domains. And by you can set listening port, you can leave it empty and will be chosen 53 port.

forward string is for where DNS query will be forward. Use . for to match all domains. In set upstream DNS server where to send queries, you can specify protocol for DoT server. If you using upstream DoT server, you need to set for TLS negotiation.

string mandatory if you use DoH, DoT or gRPC protocols. Put here certificate and private key paths in given order.

Example of configuration simple DoT proxy listening 53 port and using Cloudflare DoT server

Also, you can use several instances and forward plugins:

Start/enable the unit.

dns-over-https

At first, install dns-over-https and after setting will not forget to enable and start needed service.

Stub resolver

You can start using it right after install with default settings. Defaults ports for listening is 53 and 5380, if one of them is already binded, it will be ignored. Start/enable .

Configuration file locate at . You can change desired ports at section listen. There are many included third-parted DoH servers in configuration file, you need just uncomment one you needed or write unspecified. You can use several resolvers as well. One of them will be chosen randomly for each request. To force dns-over-https use resolvers in the required order set to weighted_round_robin or and change weight value at resolvers in use.

DoH proxy

Configuration file for use as doh server locate at . At section can set desired upstream resolver and its protocol for use. You can use dns-over-https as standalone service or together with HTTPS services like nginx or apache.

For standalone use you need to set port to 443 and specify proper cert and key:

If you want use HTTP server for caching or using along with other HTTPS services leave empty cert and key strings in and use next examples for configuration desired HTTP server. Note that there using default dns-over-https port.

nginx:

apache:

After setting up, start/enable .

python-doh-proxy

Install the following packages: ; ; ; and python-doh-proxy^AUR.

Stub resolver

If you intend to provide encrypted queries to your local network for legacy applications, configure the stub resolver:

If you do not have a way to provide a secure forward DNS lookoup to your real DNS server, you should configure both DOMAIN and NS to use one of the upstream providers (CloudFlare, OpenDNS, etc., instead of localhost). If you only need to provide lookups to localhost, this is fine. If you need to provide them for the entire network, the you could listen on 53 directly if you do not have a local caching or authoritative DNS server - you would also want to use the real IP address instead of the loopback adapter in this case.

DoH proxy

If you have an existing HTTP server and wish to proxy DNS lookups with it, setup the HTTP proxy to listen on port 8080:

Optionally, you can utilize either the doh-proxy service or an upstream DoH provider to forward queries.

DoH proxy

If you do not have an existing http server, you can configure the HTTPS/2 lisener:

/etc/conf.d/doh-proxy

NS=127.0.0.1
UPSTREAMPORT=5353
ADDR=127.0.0.1
LISTENPORT=443
CERT=/etc/ssl/private/fullchain.pem
KEY=/etc/ssl/private/privkey.pem

Again, adjust as necessary, but be certain that the upstream server has a way to perform secure queries, or you will be creating a loop.

Standalone DNS server configuration

BIND

BIND 9.18 natively supports serving both DNS over HTTPS and DNS over TLS. See BIND#Configuration for details.

As resolver, with TLS proxy

Typical: If using ISC bind as the current DNS provider, and you will be providing both forwarding services for legacy clients and DoH to modern clients, you will likely want to configure named to forward all non-local queries to your stub resolver, comment out any forwarding lines an forward to the stub resolver (omit forward only if you would like to fall back to roots):

/etc/named.conf

options {
...
    //forwarders { 8.8.8.8; 8.8.4.4; };
    forwarders { 127.0.0.1 port 5353; };
    forward only;
...
};
...

If you want to forward to an external TLS proxy (via ), do the same but use only TCP/54 (see stunnel configuration below):

Optional: If using ISC bind as the the current DNS provider, and you will be providing both forwarding services for legacy clients and DoH to modern clients, you might want to configure named to listen on an alternate port, for example TCP|UDP/54, rather than the default of 53 so that your stub resolver will listen on the standard port. Comment out any existing 'listen' lines and add the following (omit the v6 line if not needed):

Unbound

You can easily set up DoT server by adding to your configuration file port 853 to listening and specify certificate and key paths:

DoH server setup is same as DoT, but needed port is 443:

Web server configuration

Apache httpd proxy configuration

Configure a proxy in your primary httpd.conf or appropriate vhost listening on 443:

DoT Proxy

With Nginx stream module you can setup proxy to upstream DNS. Note that you can use local dns as well as third parties.

/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

...
stream {
    upstream dns {
        zone dns 64k;
        server 8.8.8.8:53;
    }
    
    server {
        listen 853 ssl;
        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/certs/public.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/private/private.pem;
        proxy_pass dns;
    }
}
...

DoH Proxy

For DoH implementation you need for use additional NJS scripts. You need to get it from this GitHub's page, put it to and be sure package nginx-mod-njs is installed.

At first you need to setup stream service, which will be get DNS request from nginx's HTTP/2 service, process it with to find DNS packets and pass it to upstream DNS server.

Then, setup HTTP/2 service to listen DNS requests at URI /dns-query and relay them to stream service. Note that to a need change certificates to valid

You can use both DoT and DoH services at same time, caching and multiple upstream DNS. For more examples see these configuration files

DNS over TLS configuration via stunnel

Configure stunnel to listen on TCP/853 for TLS connections, and forward to your local DNS provider:

Configure stunnel to listen on TCP/54 and forward to an upstream secure provider:

DNS over HTTPS server Docker images

See https://hub.docker.com/r/satishweb/doh-server.