nsupdate fails if the system dns resolver does not forward TKEY I've seen this happening in this configuration: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6727 The flow seams to be: 1. find primary master* 2. gss setup (over system defined dns server) 3. send signed update request to primary master *there seams to be a fallback in place when no SOA is in AUTHORITY and ANSWER section: remove the leftmose dns label and repeat step 1 Using this "stub" resolver only QUERY and ANSWER section seem to be passed. I would suggest a fallback for the case where TKEY gets filtered: Talk with the primary master directly: 1. find primary master 2. gss setup (over system defined dns server, if it fails using primary master) 3. send signed update request to primary master