The Photon operating system must disable systemd fallback Domain Name System (DNS).

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-256590	PHTN-30-000245	SV-256590r887444_rule		Medium

Description
Systemd contains an ability to set fallback DNS servers. This is used for DNS lookups in the event no system-level DNS servers are configured or other DNS servers are specified in the systemd "resolved.conf" file. If uncommented, this configuration contains Google DNS servers by default and could result in DNS leaking information unknowingly in the event DNS is absent or misconfigured at the system level.

Description

Systemd contains an ability to set fallback DNS servers. This is used for DNS lookups in the event no system-level DNS servers are configured or other DNS servers are specified in the systemd "resolved.conf" file. If uncommented, this configuration contains Google DNS servers by default and could result in DNS leaking information unknowingly in the event DNS is absent or misconfigured at the system level.

STIG	Date
VMware vSphere 7.0 vCenter Appliance Photon OS Security Technical Implementation Guide	2023-12-01

Details

Check Text ( C-60265r887442_chk )
At the command line, run the following command: # resolvectl status \| grep 'Fallback DNS' If the output indicates that fallback DNS servers are configured, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-60208r887443_fix)
Navigate to and open: /etc/systemd/resolved.conf Add or update the "FallbackDNS" entry to the following: FallbackDNS= Restart the systemd resolved service by running the following command: # systemctl restart systemd-resolved Note: If this option is not given, a compiled-in list of DNS servers is used instead, which is undesirable.