MT3000 using local gateway instead of specified DNS servers

Technical Support for Routers VPN, DNS, Leaks
1

Background

I have a GL.iNet GL-MT3000 running OpenWrt 21.02-SNAPSHOT r15812+908-46b6ee7ffc and Kernel Version 5.4.211. Firmware is Version 4.7.0 release3.

I have a Wireguard VPN server setup elsewhere. I downloaded the config file and configured the Wireguard VPN client on the MT3000. When the client service is running, it connects successfully to the server.

Both whatismyip.com and ipleaks.net show my IP address is the VPN server's exit node address.

I have my NextDNS server IP addresses set as the DNS servers for both the router and the Wireguard server.

Hardware acceleration is off.

Problem

Running ip route show on the MT3000 (SSH session) shows that it is using the local gateway (192.168.1.1) for DNS resolution rather than NextDNS.

2

ip route show shows the default gateway and routing tables, not the DNS server.

You can use https://whoismydns.com/ to detect what is the DNS server using.