Hostnames and LAN DNS Servers

[Jimmy9]

I was going to use an old Mac Mini as a dedicated Adguard server. As soon as i change the DHCP settings on the router to push the adguard server, no resolution of hosts on the LAN, which i expect. However Adguard has the option of specifying the Asus router for resolution of hostnames. However the router does not resolve them.

I SSH into the router and still i cant resolve the hosts i can see in the /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases

I also notice, where i have a client set to use DHCP, but manually reserve an IP in the router outside of the pool, it does not appear in leases. What is the expected behaviour here?

I have the nextdns cli, i run a discover and i find a list of local hosts, but i cannot reach any of them by name, regardless of nextdns state.

I dont know if this never worked, or stopped working recently. I have the Firmware:3004.388.9_2

From ssh on the router I do nslookup jarvis and the upstream server responds, i do nslookup jarvis 10.0.1.1 and it works. in WAN settings i have Forward local request upstream set to off.

I know i could script the retrieval of the leases etc, but i prefer not to. Its not really a big deal, more i am curious how it is supposed to work.

 

[bbunge]

Load a Linux distro into the MAC Mini. Debian works fine. Then install Pi-Hole and add your own block lists. Better than AdGuard!

 

[Jimmy9]

I tried pihole, nextdns etc, now i am trying adguard (its already running on linux).

 

[dave14305]

What does the upstream DNS settings look like in AGH? Is DNS Director enabled on the router? If yes, is there an exception for the MAC Mini host MAC address?

Is nextdns disabled? It can disrupt other DNS functions on the router.

 

[Jimmy9]

AGH I have tried the public ones, like 1.1.1.1 and nextdns.
DNS Director is not enabled.
I was running nextdns cli on the router and tried with it on and off.

I guess the main issue is, i am SSH into the router, i can try with nextdns on and off and get the same result, cannot resolve local hosts.

admin@RT-AX88U-1B68:/tmp/home/root# nslookup jarvis 10.0.1.1
Server: 10.0.1.1
Address 1: 10.0.1.1 RT-AX88U-1B68.home
Name: jarvis
Address 1: 10.0.1.4 jarvis.home

admin@RT-AX88U-1B68:/tmp/home/root# nslookup jarvis
Server: 111.220.1.1
Address 1: 111.220.1.1 nc1.dns.oss-core.net
nslookup: can't resolve 'jarvis'

 

[dave14305]

The router does not use its own dns server to resolve names. But AGH pointing to the router IP for .home domain should still work.

[/home/]10.0.1.1:53
[//]10.0.1.1:53
[/1.0.10.in-addr.arpa/]10.0.1.1:53

 

[Jimmy9]

Thanks. To be clear. Do i add this to Private Reverse DNS Server? I already have the IP of the router in there and Checked both User Private Reverse DNS and Enable Reverse Resolving.

Also, am curious. The router does not look up hosts locally at all by design?

 

[dave14305]

Also, am curious. The router does not look up hosts locally at all by design?

Oh, it should still be an option in 388.9. It was removed in 3006.102 versions. Look on the Tools Settings page for “Wan: Use local caching DNS server as system resolver (default: No)” option.

I don’t use AGH, so I don’t really know what you see. I just know the syntax to specify alternate servers for some queries.

 

[Tech9]

Better than AdGuard!

No. AdGuard Home has easier to use UI and additional compatibility and functionality not present in Pi-Hole.

 

[Jimmy9]

Oh, it should still be an option in 388.9. It was removed in 3006.102 versions. Look on the Tools Settings page for “Wan: Use local caching DNS server as system resolver (default: No)” option.

I don’t use AGH, so I don’t really know what you see. I just know the syntax to specify alternate servers for some queries.

Thanks its a radio button and already set to no. Maybe i will try and set to yes and then back to no.

 

[Jimmy9]

After a period of time, without having touched anything, the rdns look ups for clients in AGH are all resolved using the router. This must be tied to lease renewal i am guessing?

But i cannot use the local names on the LAN. If I add them as rewrites into AGH it works which is fine and only very slightly less convenient that looking up the lan hosts on the router.

Devices outside the pool are listed as ARP clients, but never resolve on AGH. They now appear in the leases file. I can change the pool, i just always exlcude the first 10 as a habit and keep all my static reservations there, but i can expand the pool and still reserve simple enough.

Also, none of this is a big issue, more curious about what to expect because it seems odd.

 

[Jimmy9]

The router does not use its own dns server to resolve names. But AGH pointing to the router IP for .home domain should still work.

[/home/]10.0.1.1:53
[/1.0.10.in-addr.arpa/]10.0.1.1:53

Thanks, these go in Upstream Server for the next person. Quickly resolved hosts on the LAN using the AGH as the DNS server.