DNS Director appears to work differently now after one of the recent firmware updates. I want to clarify to make sure I understand the changes.

[Randy420]

Issue: DNS director is not re-directing things through my pihole unless I also define the WAN DNS as my pihole.

Expected/Previous Behavior: DNS Director would not care what is defined as the WAN DNS and would instead use the LAN DNS section. This was also the old behavior.

Actual/New Behavior: DNS Director seems to be using the WAN DNS and ignoring the LAN DNS. If I have WAN DNS set to google or cloudflare or something, then DNS Director seems to redirect things through these DNS rather than the LAN DNS (which is pihole).

Impact: DNS Director not working since devices can easily bypass my pihole.

Only fix I can find: set the WAN DNS to my pihole as well. In the past I never had to do this?



Clarifications of Current Settings:

DNS Director: I have global redirection set to "router" and my pihole is set as "no redirection"

LAN DNS: My pihole is listed for all 3 defined LAN DNS IPs. I also have "Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS" set to OFF.


Can someone please explain to me if DNS Director behavior was changed, and if the above behavior is now normal? I am almost certain that the behavior changes started ~may 2025 with one of the recent firmware updates. I am on a RT-AX86U Pro.

 

[ColinTaylor]

DNS Director: I have global redirection set to "router" and my pihole is set as "no redirection"

As per the change log this is different now. "Router" means router, not LAN DHCP Server DNS settings. Therefore you need to set DNS Director to "User Defined 1" and then put your PiHole address in the user defined address.

 

[Randy420]

As per the change log this is different now. "Router" means router, not LAN DHCP DNS settings. Therefore you need to so DNS director to "user defined 1" and then put your PiHole address in the user defined address.

Got it, thank you very much. That makes sense. I wasn't entirely clear on the changelog language but this is clear now, thank you.