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    How to setup a Host Override

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved DHCP and DNS
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
      last edited by johnpoz

      @jimfreeze home.arpa is the new standard use local domain.

      https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8375
      Special-Use Domain 'home.arpa.'

      And yes not exactly sure what exact version of pfsense moved to it vs .localdomain.. But from your previous post that is what you showed as your pfsense name and domain.. pfsense.home.arpa

      I kept meaning to move to it from my local.lan - but have a lot certs I have created using local.lan in them, and just haven't bothered to switch yet.

      I haven't added anything to /etc/hosts.

      Please show it like I did - this will show us what pfsense fqdn should be and any host overrides, etc. you have created. I just snipped mine because I have a lot of stuff in there and was just wanting to what my sg4860.local.lan is listed in there from my general page setup.

      BTW - are you using pfblocker? And have something odd setup there? But pfsense from the diag host lookup should for sure be able to lookup its own name ;)

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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      • J
        jimfreeze @johnpoz
        last edited by

        @johnpoz Thank you. That's great information.

        /etc/hosts looks standard to me.

        % cat /etc/hosts
        ##
        # Host Database
        #
        # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
        # when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
        ##
        127.0.0.1	localhost
        255.255.255.255	broadcasthost
        ::1             localhost
        
        127.0.0.1	local.host
        

        I installed pfblocker a few hours ago. I just did the basic install.

        And, it still doesn't seem to be able to find the home.arpa domain.

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        • johnpozJ
          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
          last edited by

          @jimfreeze that doesn't look like pfsense hosts file..

          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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          • J
            jimfreeze @johnpoz
            last edited by

            @johnpoz Looking at the link you set, should the domain setting under general setup be home.arpa. and not home.arpa?

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            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
              last edited by

              @jimfreeze dude that is not your pfsense hosts file..

              Here

              pfsensehosts.jpg

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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              • J
                jimfreeze @johnpoz
                last edited by

                @johnpoz Hey, sorry about that. I saw your post and responded, but it didn't go through.

                cat /etc/hosts
                127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                ::1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                

                BTW, I'm not sure how this setup has changed, but it NOW recognizes pfsense.home.arpa, without a host override.

                johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                  last edited by johnpoz

                  @jimfreeze said in How to setup a Host Override:

                  without a host override.

                  Because you shouldn't have to do that - since that is pfsense default name.

                  Now can your clients resolve pfsense.home.arpa? And can you access the webgui via that name.

                  But your failing to show your full hosts file - since your not showing pfsense.home.arpa in there and just the first 2 lines..

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                  • J
                    jimfreeze @johnpoz
                    last edited by jimfreeze

                    @johnpoz Yes, clients can ping pfsense.home.arpa and web access also works.

                    That is the full /ect/hosts file.

                    8) Shell
                    
                    Enter an option: 8
                    
                    [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root: cat /etc/hosts
                    127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                    ::1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                    [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root:
                    
                    johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                      last edited by johnpoz

                      @jimfreeze how exactly would you be resolving pfsense.home.arpa if its not in your hosts file?

                      edit: ah look in here
                      cat /var/unbound/host_entries.conf

                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                      • J
                        jimfreeze @johnpoz
                        last edited by

                        @johnpoz Hmmm

                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root: cat /var/unbound/host_entries.conf
                        local-zone: "home.arpa." transparent
                        local-data-ptr: "127.0.0.1 localhost.home.arpa"
                        local-data: "localhost. A 127.0.0.1"
                        local-data: "localhost.home.arpa. A 127.0.0.1"
                        local-data-ptr: "::1 localhost.home.arpa"
                        local-data: "localhost. AAAA ::1"
                        local-data: "localhost.home.arpa. AAAA ::1"
                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root:
                        
                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root: cat /etc/hosts
                        127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                        ::1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root:
                        

                        However, when I opened my laptop up this time (no changes to pfsense), it is NOT resolving

                        arm64:~ % ping pfsense.home.arpa
                        ping: cannot resolve pfsense.home.arpa: Unknown host
                        arm64:~ % ping home.arpa
                        ping: cannot resolve home.arpa: Unknown host
                        arm64:~ % ping localhost.home.arpa
                        PING localhost.home.arpa (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
                        64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.077 ms
                        64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.097 ms
                        ^C
                        
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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                          last edited by

                          @jimfreeze Well no it can not and would not resolve if there is no entry there..

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                          • J
                            jimfreeze @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz So, how do clients recognize the home.arpa domain without setting a host override?

                            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                              last edited by

                              @jimfreeze Huh.. home.arpa is your domain that is being handed out via dhcp.. Why you have no entry for pfsense.home.arpa I have no idea what your actually doing..

                              Your general setting that you posted before showed pfsense with home.arpa as the domain. This is a default.

                              Did you change that?

                              But if there is no entry for pfsense.home.arpa for unbound to know about, then no it can return an answer for that via a dns query.

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                              • J
                                jimfreeze @johnpoz
                                last edited by

                                @johnpoz The home.arpa was "just there" when I installed pfsense. I don't know that that means anything, that is, that such a domain exists. If it exists, it seems it needs to be defined by pfsense somewhere.

                                The DHCP service was already running, I only configured the port range and main address.

                                Screen Shot 2021-11-13 at 8.05.23 AM.png

                                Screen Shot 2021-11-13 at 8.05.38 AM.png

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                                • johnpozJ
                                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                                  last edited by

                                  @jimfreeze again yes home.arpa is default... And right there in your dhcp server it clearly states that system will be used

                                  domain.jpg

                                  And again if unbound has no entry for the system name.. Did you change that or get rid of it?

                                  From your previous post

                                  setup.jpg

                                  So again - if unbound has no entry for pfsense.home.arpa or whatever other domain you might set in system. Then NO it could not respond for a query.. How would it know what to respond with, etc..

                                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                  • J
                                    jimfreeze @johnpoz
                                    last edited by

                                    @johnpoz I don't think you understand the problem. The problem is not that I believe the router should break the laws of physics or that it should function in a way it's not supposed to. The problem is there are multiple touchpoints in configuring a system to work, and they do not work out of the box. That is, they do not define the home.arpa domain and clients are not able to resolve home.arpa when that domain is defined in "General Setup".

                                    So far we have talked about 3 configuration points to get a local domain defined and resolvable:

                                    • "General Setup": Hostname and Domain
                                    • "DHCP Server": Gateway and 'Domain name' left blank to use default host
                                    • "DNS Resolver": No config added

                                    The above steps do not allow clients to resolve home.arpa.
                                    I am not seeing in the docs how this setup should be done. It seems like it should be a basic procedure.

                                    johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jimfreeze
                                      last edited by johnpoz

                                      @jimfreeze said in How to setup a Host Override:

                                      and they do not work out of the box.

                                      Sorry but they do.. I have setup pfsense countless times.. All of it just works out of the box..

                                      are not able to resolve home.arpa when that domain is defined in "General Setup".

                                      What would they resolve home.arpa too? That is just the domain, there is no host there.. So no trying to resolve just home.arpa wouldn't resolve to anything... What should resolve is pfsense.home.arpa since that would be the default fqdn..

                                      Out of the box pfsense

                                      default.jpg

                                      Working just fine...

                                      Here is that other file I said to look at - on a default fire up of pfsense..

                                      defaultsetup.jpg

                                      So I am not sure what you have going on - but this works just out of the box..

                                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                      • J
                                        jimfreeze @johnpoz
                                        last edited by

                                        @johnpoz So, that is the real question. Why is that line not getting defined on my router?

                                        arm64:~ % nslookup pfsense.home.arpa
                                        Server:		192.168.100.1
                                        Address:	192.168.100.1#53
                                        
                                        ** server can't find pfsense.home.arpa: SERVFAIL
                                        
                                        arm64:~ % ping pfsense.home.arpa
                                        ping: cannot resolve pfsense.home.arpa: Unknown host
                                        

                                        It's almost certain that I have some config that is preventing that from happening, but I don't know what it could be. You have verified the settings are correct on General setup, DNS resolver and DHCP server.

                                        /etc/hosts is still the same and does not include the pfSense line like yours does.

                                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root: cat /etc/hosts
                                        127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                                        ::1	localhost localhost.home.arpa
                                        [21.05.2-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root:
                                        

                                        Can you think of a configuration setting that I changed that would cause this?

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                                        • M
                                          MoonKnight @jimfreeze
                                          last edited by MoonKnight

                                          @jimfreeze

                                          What DNS servers do you have in your General Setup?

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                                          • J
                                            jimfreeze @MoonKnight
                                            last edited by

                                            @ciscox None

                                            Screen Shot 2021-11-13 at 9.06.30 AM.png

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