knot-resolver-gael

This is NOT an original piece of work, just a snap of Knot Resolver

Knot Resolver is a caching full resolver implementation written in C and LuaJIT, both a resolver library and a daemon. The core architecture is tiny and efficient, and provides a foundation and a state-machine like API for extensions. There are three modules built-in - iterator, validator, cache, and a few more are loaded by default. Most of the rich features are written in Lua(JIT) and C. Batteries are included, but optional.

The LuaJIT modules, support DNS privacy and DNSSEC, and persistent cache with low memory footprint make it a great personal DNS resolver or a research tool to tap into DNS data. TL;DR it's the OpenResty of DNS.

First use

• Read the doc at https://knot-resolver.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ on how to get started.

• Configure the resolver sudo vi /var/snap/knot-resolver-gael/current/kresd.conf

• Start and enable Knot Resolver sudo snap start --enable knot-resolver-gael.kresd

• Read the logs sudo snap logs -n 30 knot-resolver-gael.kresd

Deny domain resolution (refreshed every 4 hrs)

• Enter hosts lists URLs (optional)

sudo vi /var/snap/knot-resolver-gael/common/policies/deny_hosts.url

# Sample deny host files URLs

https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=hosts;showintro=0
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anudeepND/blacklist/master/adservers.txt
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts

• Enter domains lists URLs (optional)

sudo vi /var/snap/knot-resolver-gael/common/policies/deny_domains.url

# Sample deny domains URLs

https://gitlab.com/quidsup/notrack-blocklists/raw/master/notrack-blocklist.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/AdguardDNS.txt
https://v.firebog.net/hosts/Easyprivacy.txt

• Start and enable deny policy sudo snap start --enable knot-resolver-gael.deny-policy

• Read the logs sudo snap logs -n 30 knot-resolver-gael.deny-policy

• Add the deny policy list to kresd.conf sudo vi /var/snap/knot-resolver-gael/current/kresd.conf

  policy.add(policy.rpz(policy.DENY, '/var/snap/knot-resolver-gael/common/policies/deny_policy.rpz',true))

• Restart Knot Resolver sudo snap restart knot-resolver-gael.kresd

• Read the logs sudo journalctl --follow --lines 30 -u snap.knot-resolver-gael.kresd

2026-08-22

• New build to resolve USN-8543-2

2026-07-25

• New build to resolve CVE-2026-15146/USN-8572-1

2026-07-16

• New build to resolve USN-8543-1/USN-8544-1

2026-07-03

• New build to resolve CVE-2026-58055/USN-8495-1

2026-05-08

• New build to resolve CVE-2026-27135/USN-8233-1

2025-11-26

• Added http module

2025-09-03

• Updated to v5.7.6

2025-04-30

• Updated to v5.7.5

2024-11-17

• Fixed automatic policy refresh (incorrect architecture environment variable)
• Fixed dnstap module dependency
• Fixed documentation

2024-10-31

• knot-resolver-gael will now use core24 as most users are on Ubuntu 24.04

2024-08-14

• Updated to v5.7.4

2024-06-25

• Updated to v5.7.3

2024-02-21

• Updated to v5.7.1
• Fix for CVE-2023-50868: NSEC3 closest encloser proof can exhaust CPU
• Fix for CVE-2023-50387 "KeyTrap"

2023-09-21

• Updated to v5.7.0

2023-02-08

• Updated to v5.6.0
• knot-resolver-gael will now use core22 as most users are on Ubuntu 22.04

2022-09-26

• Updated to v5.5.3
• Fix CVE-2022-40188

2022-06-14

• Updated to v5.5.1

2022-03-20

• Updated to v5.5.0

2022-01-11

• Updated to v5.4.4

2021-12-13

• Updated to v5.4.3

2021-10-14

• Updated to v5.4.2

2021-08-22

• Updated to v5.4.1
• Dependencies cleanup

2021-08-16

• Added DNStap module. See https://snapcraft.io/dnstap-gael

2021-04-11

• Updated to v5.3.1
• Added deny list with Response Policy Zone (RPZ) refreshed every 4 hrs