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Local DNS Failing on ASUS firmware

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Sam843

Occasional Visitor
Recently installed an AC3200 and AC68U to replace aging Apple Airport APs. The router was an ASUS 56u with tomato firmware. Replaced all that with new.

The 3200 is the router and the 68U is a second floor access point (backhaul over Ethernet). Everything is working fine except local DNS...

Any local dns query errors out... this is on a Mac network. Forward or reverse queries result in no domain found. External dns queries resolve just fine. I’ve played with every imaginable combination of local domain names (lan, home.lan, etc) as well as entries (including none) in the dhcp settings for local dns server. The Mac clients pick up the routers ip for DNS as well as whatever I set as the local domain.

I’ve been setting up home routers and networks for 20 years. Have never seen anything like this. Is it a “feature” of the ASUS firmware?
 
.382 for the 3200 (latest)
.385 for the 68U (latest)
Updated firmware on both when installing yesterday.
 
So to confirm.... After you set the router's Domain Name to home.lan what does nslookup asusrouter.home.lan give you from the Mac?
 
Reverse DNS for the router IP produces: router.asus.com

Forward for same:
nslookup router.asus.com
Server: 192.168.0.99
Address: 192.168.0.99#53

Name: router.asus.com
Address: 192.168.0.99

nslookup asusrouter.home.lan
Server: 192.168.0.99
Address: 192.168.0.99#53
** server can't find asusrouter.home.lan: NXDOMAIN

Any query for a local machine name "xxxx.home.lan" produces same NXDOMAIN result.
 
So the IP address of the RT-AC3200U is 192.168.0.99 and not something like 192.168.0.1?
 
I'm at a loss. I think to understand more you'd have to telnet/ssh into the router and issue the following commands:
Code:
cd /etc
cat dnsmasq.conf
cat hosts
cat /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases
 
pid-file=/var/run/dnsmasq.pid
user=XXXX
bind-dynamic
interface=br0
interface=pptp*
no-dhcp-interface=pptp*
no-resolv
servers-file=/tmp/resolv.dnsmasq
no-poll
no-negcache
cache-size=1500
min-port=4096
domain=home.lan
expand-hosts
dhcp-range=lan,192.168.0.120,192.168.0.160,255.255.255.0,1440s
dhcp-option=lan,3,192.168.0.99
dhcp-option=lan,15,home.lan
dhcp-option=lan,44,0.0.0.0
dhcp-option=lan,252,"\n"
dhcp-authoritative
dhcp-host=78:7B:8A:D5:3F:23,192.168.0.114
dhcp-host=B0:34:95:37:EF:AE,192.168.0.116
dhcp-host=B8:76:3F:64:C2:2F,192.168.0.115
dhcp-host=00:11:32:AF:5A:90,192.168.0.108
dhcp-host=00:80:77:E8:EC:81,192.168.0.111
dhcp-host=A8:5E:45:43:1E:F0,192.168.0.100
XXXX@RT-AC3200:/tmp/etc# cat hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.0.99 router.asus.com
192.168.0.99 www.asusnetwork.net
192.168.0.99 www.asusrouter.com
192.168.0.99 RT-AC3200-40E0.home.lan RT-AC3200-40E0
XXXXX@RT-AC3200:/tmp/etc# cat /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases
826 c4:b3:01:b9:47:31 192.168.0.158 XXXX xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
1313 98:01:a7:1e:02:d6 192.168.0.133
1440 58:ef:68:bb:4e:9d 192.168.0.129 xxxx *
1438 58:ef:68:da:17:d5 192.168.0.148 xxxx
1239 98:01:a7:b5:db:71 192.168.0.123 XXXX xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
928 30:23:03:45:80:b9 192.168.0.128 * *
1425 24:f5:a2:c7:d3:d3 192.168.0.157 * *
1426 94:16:25:c4:c1:14 192.168.0.126 XXXX xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
1181 00:11:32:af:5a:90 192.168.0.108 XXXX xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
1438 58:ef:68:e7:f1:05 192.168.0.139 * *
1438 58:ef:68:d7:ad:85 192.168.0.149 * *
1290 c4:2a:d0:11:33:28 192.168.0.150 XXXX xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
910 20:db:ab:23:06:eb 192.168.0.140 * *
 
OK so you don't have an entry for asusrouter like I do. But these should return valid addresses:
Code:
nslookup RT-AC3200-40E0.home.lan
nslookup RT-AC3200-40E0
nslookup 192.168.0.158
nslookup 192.168.0.129
nslookup 192.168.0.150
Unfortunately you obscured the actual host names of your clients which would be the thing we're most interested in. So try the following where XXXX is one of the obscured host names shown in the leases file.
Code:
nslookup XXXX.home.lan
nslookup XXXX
 
nslookup RT-AC3200-40E0.home.lan
Server: 192.168.0.99
Address: 192.168.0.99#53

Name: RT-AC3200-40E0.home.lan
Address: 192.168.0.99

nslookup RT-AC3200-40E0
Server: 192.168.0.99
Address: 192.168.0.99#53

Name: RT-AC3200-40E0.home.lan
Address: 192.168.0.99

nslookup 192.168.0.158
Server: 192.168.0.99
Address: 192.168.0.99#53

158.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa name = XXXX

OK, so here's the weird part. The IP's set with Manual assignment inside the router DO NOT resolve properly... The IP's set with DHCP or Static (at the end machine) do appear to resolve properly...
 
I can't reproduce that behaviour, but then I'm not using the same firmware version as you.

Can you test this on a Windows PC rather than a Mac?
 
Why is your DHCP time 24 minutes (1440 seconds)? Is that intentional or did you enter minutes instead of seconds?
 
All Mac here... Which firmware are you running?
John's fork of Merlin's firmware.

I suggest that you try Merlin's instead of stock firmware, if only for the fact that you can specify host names on the router's DHCP reservations page, which you can't in stock firmware.
 
Merlin solved the issue. DHCP, DNS including static and router assignments now resolve properly. Thx for help.
 

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