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    DNS Forwarder vs DNS Resolver pfSense 2.2

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved DHCP and DNS
    22 Posts 12 Posters 47.8k Views
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    • D
      doktornotor Banned
      last edited by

      Yeah I would strongly suggest leaving some known working DNS servers there, independent of the DNS forwarder/resolver in pfSense. Without any DNS available, things just slow down to a crawl when trying to do something in the web GUI.

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      • K
        kejianshi
        last edited by

        Just incase all of the root DNS servers go down but the rest of the internet is doing fine?  haha

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        • D
          doktornotor Banned
          last edited by

          No, just in case unbound crashes or fails to start… as said above.

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          • K
            kejianshi
            last edited by

            I've had really unpredictable results with "hedging my bets" when it comes to DNS.  Seems like an all or nothing game or else super flakey.

            I removed my reliable backup servers from that list precisely because it made things dodgy.

            Take with a grain of salt of course since this is just one lone person's perhaps unique experience.

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            • K
              kevindd992002
              last edited by

              Any thoughts on my question above?

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              • D
                dericd
                last edited by

                A DNS forwarder is suppose to forward DNS requests to a resolver. A DNS resolver does the actual name resolution by checking root servers and following the NS chain to the target DNS server that is responsible for the requested hostname/zone.

                So it would seem that sequence of the resolvers and such would have no impact because they are irrelevant in this case.

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                • S
                  sstretchh
                  last edited by

                  @dericd:

                  A DNS forwarder is suppose to forward DNS requests to a resolver. A DNS resolver does the actual name resolution by checking root servers and following the NS chain to the target DNS server that is responsible for the requested hostname/zone.

                  So it would seem that sequence of the resolvers and such would have no impact because they are irrelevant in this case.

                  So do you have both set up ? what port did you use for each, since you can't use the same port for resolver and forwarder. Just trying to figure out how to go about using both

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                  • E
                    Ecnerwal
                    last edited by

                    It's an either/or, not both thing. The resolver should be faster for most cases as it's serving locally from limited queries to the outside world (first time a name is asked for or when the TTL expires and it rechecks), rather than constantly querying the outside world.

                    pfSense on i5 3470/DQ77MK/16GB/500GB

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                    • S
                      sstretchh
                      last edited by

                      ahh i didn't notice till I look at the settings again that the resolver has a button for DNS Query Forwarding …opps that should help speed things up.

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                      • P
                        Paul47
                        last edited by

                        The resolver should be faster for most cases as it's serving locally from limited queries to the outside world (first time a name is asked for or when the TTL expires and it rechecks), rather than constantly querying the outside world.

                        Hmmm, I was under the impression that Forwarder also cached requests. The book says, "The DNS Forwarder in pfSense is a caching DNS resolver. " So, is Resolver really going to be faster than Forwarder, since they both cache requests?

                        On https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/DNS_Forwarder, it notes, "Important Note: This service should not be exposed publicly. Ensure inbound rules on WANs do not allow connections from the Internet to reach the DNS Forwarder service on the firewall." Is that true also for Resolver? Is that done by blocking (rejecting?) access to port 53 (or whichever port is being used) on the WAN? Or is it preferred to use the "Interfaces" section for the Forwarder service setup ("Network Interfaces" in Resolver)  to take care of that?

                        The context for these questions is a simple home router without running any internet server (at the moment).

                        BTW, https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Unbound_DNS_Resolver implies both can be running at the same time, although I'm not sure why one would do that. They must use different ports.

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                        • P
                          Paul47
                          last edited by

                          I found the answer to the "exposure" question here:
                          https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=90557.msg500907#msg500907

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                          • J
                            Jamerson
                            last edited by

                            i am using my domain controller to resolve the dns request . and pfsense using my domain controller as dns to resolve the request .
                            using the dns forwarder and dns resolver in pfsense gonna speed things up ?
                            thank you

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