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    simple local DNS entries (unbound "vs" dnsmasq)

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

      mdns is quite different than just normal dns.. And normally would have zero use in any sort of enteprise or school, etc.

      You could have hundreds or even 1000's of fqdn that resolve just using unbound or dnsmasq.. There is little need of actual authoritative ns.. Even in an enterprise you could get by without one.. All comes down to what exactly your doing.. None of which would be related to mdns to be honest.

      If you have a list of stuff to resolve - you can for sure input that into unbound so they resolve.. But if what you want is to run actual authoritative NS, then just install the bind package.

      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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      • deemeryD
        deemery
        last edited by

        OK. But I didn't see an answer to my question about exactly how to add the alias. Is "local-data: ns2.mydomain.com A 192.168.10.88" sufficient (where 192.168.10.88 is PFSense on my mydomain.com network's LAN port)?

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        • deemeryD
          deemery
          last edited by

          In particular, when I put this line in the "Custom Options" box, I got an error message:

          local-data: "ns2.mydomain.com. A 192.168.10.88"

          What am I doing wrong?

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          • NogBadTheBadN
            NogBadTheBad
            last edited by

            The following works for me, try removing the trailing .

            local-data: "ping.ui.com A 127.0.0.1"
            local-data: "ping.ui.com AAAA ::1"

            Andy

            1 x Netgate SG-4860 - 3 x Linksys LGS308P - 1 x Aruba InstantOn AP22

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            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
              last edited by

              Did you put a server: in the custom option box before you made any entries?

              record.png

              No reason to put that in the custom box though, unless you have lots them and you just want to paste them in.. such a record you can just put in the host override via the gui entry.

              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

              deemeryD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • deemeryD
                deemery @johnpoz
                last edited by

                @johnpoz That fixed it, thanks!

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                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                  last edited by johnpoz

                  If all you have is A records, and there isn't all that many of them to put in at the same time.. Might be easier to just use the gui to put them in.. I leave the custom option box for stuff that can not put in the gui.

                  example

                  private-domain: "plex.direct"
                  local-zone: "use-application-dns.net"  always_nxdomain
                  local-zone: "local."  always_nxdomain
                  

                  Or if you want to alter the TTL of a record to be something other than default.

                  But if you do have a lot of them, then yeah a simple paste of them would be faster ;)

                  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

                  deemeryD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • deemeryD
                    deemery @johnpoz
                    last edited by

                    @johnpoz I don't -think- I could use the Host Overrides to add the A record to add an alias for the PFSense box itself. For that, I just want an alias, I don't want to define the reverse look-up to the alias.

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                    • johnpozJ
                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                      last edited by johnpoz

                      Sure you can.. host override is host override..

                      So you don't want the ptr to resolve? Doesn't make a lot of sense..

                      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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                      • GertjanG
                        Gertjan @deemery
                        last edited by Gertjan

                        @deemery said in simple local DNS entries (unbound "vs" dnsmasq):

                        If all I need is DNS name resolution for names inside my local network

                        When you set up pfSense like this :

                        ebb835d2-65ad-4fbc-a742-69ddfc2a99b5-image.png

                        You will find in the /etc/hosts file this :

                        127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.my-local-domain.tld
                        ::1	localhost localhost.my-local-domain.tld
                        192.168.1.1	myrouter.my-local-domain.tld myrouter
                        2001:470:dead:beef:2::1	myrouter.my-local-domain.tld myrouter
                        .....
                        

                        Every other known host will also be present in that file.
                        Any modern OS has a /etc/hosts file (yep, even windows, it's in the system root, in /etc/hosts)
                        DHCP lease info (IP and host name) will be recorded.
                        Static hosts will be recorded there also.

                        And this file is used by the local 'DNS' ...

                        So, with you doing nothing, it already works just fine.

                        No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                        Edit : and where are the logs ??

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                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                          last edited by johnpoz

                          Also at a loss why your firewall would need an alias in the first place to be honest.. Its 1 device, why would you not just access via its actual name and record? you normally don't host other services on it, like websites or something that you would want/need to use another 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

                          deemeryD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • deemeryD
                            deemery @johnpoz
                            last edited by

                            @johnpoz said in simple local DNS entries (unbound "vs" dnsmasq):

                            Also at a loss why your firewall would need an alias in the first place to be honest.. Its 1 device, why would you not just access via its actual name and record? you normally don't host other services on it, like websites or something that you would want/need to use another name.

                            That's a fair question. 3 partial answers :-) :-)

                            1. naming convention I'm used to. "ns.mydomain.com" is the name for the domain server. Considering I don't do this kind of work all the time, there is substantial value to following naming conventions so when I come back in a year or two, it's easier to figure out what I did previously.

                            2. Generally, I want to "change it once and leave it alone" when it comes to network settings across devices. That's particularly true for the ~10 devices on my home network (including iPhone/iPad)

                            3. right now, the PFSense is NOT my router/firewall device. But come to think of it, if I do change that, I'll have to touch all the device network settings anyway.

                            In the short run, I want to get DNS on PFSense working first. Then I can decommission the OS X Server instance that now provides DNS, knowing that (after I change the network settings across my network devices :-) ) name resolution will work. Then I can slowly experiment with other PFSense services. (Starting with VPN, then moving to DHCP and firewall.)

                            And @Gertjan , no /etc/hosts access on iDevices like iPhone or iPad. There's not much dependency in these devices for local names in mydomain.com, but I still want things to be consistent across the set of devices. (I'm not quite sure how "Files" works on iPad, probably .local/bonjour networking....)

                            GertjanG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • GertjanG
                              Gertjan @deemery
                              last edited by

                              @deemery said in simple local DNS entries (unbound "vs" dnsmasq):

                              @Gertjan , no /etc/hosts access on iDevices like iPhone or iPad.

                              I have those in my /etc/hosts file. All of them. 4 iPhones, and an iPad.

                              Because all these devices, from Samsung, Apple, Dell, etc do the same thing : they have and use a DHCP client. So the DHCP server answering them (pfSEnse) - and some code magic, and ... they wind up in /etc/.hosts
                              And, again, this file is used by the unbound (resolver) or dnsmasq, the forwarder.
                              The /etc/hosts file is the local (for pfSense) "database" with known local LAN based devices.

                              No "help me" PM's please. Use the forum, the community will thank you.
                              Edit : and where are the logs ??

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                              • johnpozJ
                                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                last edited by

                                The only issue with registering of dhcp clients in unbound, is it restarts unbound.. So depending on how many clients you have, and how short your lease time is.. There can be some issues with unbound restarting all the time.

                                I don't register dhcp clients for this reason.. All clients I want to be able to resolve have reservations - which I do register..

                                Most people will not have problem with unbound restarting... Not great for your cache ;) But normally people will not see any issues with it doing that.

                                But yeah sure, out of the box you have some dhcp client - called billy, you would be able to resolve billy.yourdomain.tld because of the dhcp lease being registered in unbound, via addition of it in the host 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

                                deemeryD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • deemeryD
                                  deemery @johnpoz
                                  last edited by

                                  @johnpoz Most of my Macs are both wired and wireless (some Apple services complain if they can't talk to WiFi). For those, I assign a fixed IP and DNS entry for the wired, and let the wireless pick up the DHCP.

                                  But I do have one laptop I carry around the house that is WiFi only. I suppose I should configure that as "DHCP with fixed IP Address" and the associated DNS A record entry.

                                  @Gertjan So your /etc/hosts is only on the PFSense box? That would meet my "define things in only 1 place" objective :-)

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                                  • johnpozJ
                                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                    last edited by johnpoz

                                    @deemery said in simple local DNS entries (unbound "vs" dnsmasq):

                                    (some Apple services complain if they can't talk to WiFi).

                                    Huh? Just out of curiosity.. Your saying some box running some service, while it has a wired connection it puts up some error or info that wireless is not connected? So set these devices up multihomed? Both wired and wireless? That seems counterproductive to me..

                                    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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                                    • deemeryD
                                      deemery @johnpoz
                                      last edited by

                                      @johnpoz Not an error, but a complaint. Example the Maps application complains "better location accuracy if WiFi is enabled." (Understandable, because I believe they use 'what WiFi can I see near me' to determine location. Google does the same thing, I believe.)

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                                      • deemeryD
                                        deemery
                                        last edited by deemery

                                        Well darn! I thought I had this figured out.

                                        I cabled a machine directly to the LAN port, and set the DNS server to the PFSense box using its LAN IP address. That worked, nslookup returned values.

                                        So then I unplugged the LAN cable, and set the DNS server to the PFSense box on the IP address of the WAN port. That did NOT work. And I'm not sure why.... nslookup times out.

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                                        • johnpozJ
                                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                          last edited by johnpoz

                                          Well I don't have any apple devices with wired interfaces to test this with, but wouldn't just disable of the wifi interface remove such nonsense popups, etc..

                                          My iphone pops up such info, when using just cell data.. But don't recall ever seeing my PC doing anything like that.. It has a wifi adapter - its just disabled, guess I can turn it on and not connect it and see if get such popups asking to enable wifi..

                                          edit: ok just tested this on my windows PC going to google maps and clicking my location. While the browser asks if ok to hand out info (i have it set not to let sites use location info).. Sure mentions nothing about wifi, I have my wifi adapter enabled, just not connected to anything.

                                          Normally that is just disabled.

                                          Wouldn't it be easier to just disable the hardware of your wifi, if the device is hardwired? Shoot many a laptop device will auto disable wifi when ethernet is connected.. I sure wouldn't multihome a device to remove some info about some stupid app asking me to enable wifi ;) heheh.. If I couldn't turn that off - I wouldn't use such a shitty app to be honest..

                                          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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                                          • NogBadTheBadN
                                            NogBadTheBad @johnpoz
                                            last edited by NogBadTheBad

                                            @johnpoz

                                            Wouldn't it be easier to just disable the hardware of your wifi, if the device is hardwired? Shoot many a laptop device will auto disable wifi when ethernet is connected.. I sure wouldn't multihome a device to remove some info about some stupid app asking me to enable wifi ;) heheh.. If I couldn't turn that off - I wouldn't use such a shitty app to be honest..

                                            You need to switch on Wi-Fi & Bluetooth if you want to unlock your Mac from an Apple Watch if you have one.

                                            Screenshot 2020-09-03 at 17.01.40.png

                                            It's a right pain, I have a wired Mac that I have to enable Wi-Fi & Bluetooth on.

                                            If I connect to another SSID at home, lets say my GUEST network from my phone and I haven't connected to it before, the SSID is then known on the Mac and it connects automatically, you then have to untick Automatically join this network.

                                            Screenshot 2020-09-03 at 17.05.38.png

                                            Apples logic on this seems a little braindead.

                                            Andy

                                            1 x Netgate SG-4860 - 3 x Linksys LGS308P - 1 x Aruba InstantOn AP22

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