[RndTbl] simple name service

Dan Martin ummar143 at shaw.ca
Sun Jan 22 13:00:58 CST 2012


Thanks guys!

Laziness is one of my main virtues.  (I think virtues and vices are like features and bugs ;)  )

Seriously, my entire wired network is in the basement.  I vacated the basement after discovering I have significant radon gas levels.  I do most of my work on a main floor machine connected by wireless.  I try to limit the amount of time in the basement, so reading through a Linux book and hacking on the gateway for several hours is not an option.

I ultimately want to learn more and do more with it, but for now I just want it to work.

On 2012-01-22, at 11:54 AM, Adam Thompson wrote:

>> Make sure that your machines DNS settings go to the gateway, not
>> your upstream providers DNS servers. If you've been setting the IP's
>> statically you may have set it to something other than your gateway.
>> In fact, you most likely have. You'll need to change
>> /etc/resolv.conf if you have.
>> 
>> I've used small bind installs on a fair number of systems now, and
>> honestly, they are dirt simple. I'd suggest following a guide like
>> that and posting to the list if you have an issue with anything
>> specific. I know most people at MUUG who run DNS servers run Bind,
>> or are very familiar with it, so we'll be able to help you out.
>> 
>> Another option: If you know which MAC addresses go to which
>> machines, you could setup a small DHCP server and have their
>> addresses set in /etc/dhcpd.conf. This would allow you to change the
>> IP range fairly easily, and also push custom DNS options down
>> without having to touch each machine.
> 
> Following on Rob's suggestions, I would recommend combining those two 
> functions into one by using dnsmasq 
> (http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html).  This software is used 
> successfully on many small firewall distros and is in fact embedded in 
> many home routers.
> Its primary advantage is simplicity, compared to an integrated DNS+DHCP 
> setup using BIND and DHCPD, but the fact that it also captures DHCP 
> machine names might be a substantial benefit in Dan's situation.

That might be handy.  Up until now I have avoided DHCP partly because the network was quite static and partly for security reasons.

It seems everything these days is DHCP - my wireless printer expects it by default.  I understand that one could maintain a list of eligible MAC addresses for wireless connection, so security may not be much of an issue.

At present I have manually entered static addresses, but I can change to DHCP if there are advantages.

> It additionally uses /etc/hosts on the firewall/gateway as an additional 
> source of names,

I like the sound of that.

> so you don't have to configure multiple name databases.
> Its big downside is the lack of flexibility - it's designed to solve a 
> small handful of use cases, and it does those very well, but it can't do 
> everything BIND or DHCPD can do.
> 
> On a related note, if you're interested in using commodity hardware to run 
> a firewall/router/gateway/DNS server/DHCP server/proxy server, and your 
> objective isn't specifically to learn Linux, I would recommend pfSense 
> (www.pfsense.org), which is based on FreeBSD, and integrates all the 
> common use cases into a fairly clean GUI.  (FYI, I'll likely be doing a 
> presentation on pfSense at a meeting sometime this year.)

That may be useful.  Hope to see your presentation!

> 
> -Adam Thompson
> athompso at athompso.net
> 
> 
> 
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Dan Martin
GP Hospital Practitioner
Computer Scientist
ummar143 at shaw.ca
(204) 831-1746
answering machine always on




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