I lost the internet (actually just DNS not resolving correctly) after installing Winscribe for Linux and disconnecting the session. WTF windscribe! I know it’s beta version, but at least you should check if it bricks people’s internet after a fresh install and first use!

Turns out that on first connection, it re-binds /etc/resolv.conf to /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf which has this line:

# Generated by resolvconf
nameserver 10.255.255.2

So like systemd-resolve, Windscribe lets resolvconf steal the DNS redirection that’s supposed to go straight to my router to an intermediary 10.255.255.2 that doesn’t do the job! Aargh!

To fix it (needs to be done every time after a Windscribe connection, so I’m getting rid of this lamely written Windscribe CLI for now), remove the symlink /etc/resolv.conf:

sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf

and restart NetworkManager

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

so NetworkManager will re-generate /etc/resolv.conf directly (no symlink) with the correct name server from the GUI config program (in my case, automatically obtained from my router).

Turns out it’s a common scene that in Linux, many DNS resolution program fight over the control over /etc/resolv.conf. NetworkManager kicks in after you disabled the rest.