1 <HTML> 2 <HEAD> 3 <TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE> 4 </HEAD> 5 <BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE"> 6 <H1 ALIGN=center>Dnsmasq</H1> 7 Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP 8 server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a 9 small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are 10 not in the global DNS. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS 11 server and allows machines with DHCP-allocated addresses 12 to appear in the DNS with names configured either in each host or 13 in a central configuration file. Dnsmasq supports static and dynamic 14 DHCP leases and BOOTP/TFTP/PXE for network booting of diskless machines. 15 <P> 16 Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and 17 connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL 18 connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to 19 1000 clients is known to work) where low 20 resource use and ease of configuration are important. 21 <P> 22 Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD, 23 Solaris and Mac OS X. 24 Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions: 25 Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora, 26 Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l, 27 CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and 28 Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in 29 Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project. 30 <P> 31 Dnsmasq provides the following features: 32 <DIR> 33 34 <LI> 35 The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and 36 doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers 37 <LI> 38 Clients which try to do DNS lookups while a modem link to the 39 internet is down will time out immediately. 40 </LI> 41 <LI> 42 Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall 43 machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all 44 be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine. 45 </LI> 46 <LI> 47 The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and 48 multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and 49 supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists. 50 Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically 51 included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or 52 centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq 53 config file. 54 </LI> 55 <LI> 56 Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name 57 mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and 58 improving performance (especially on modem connections). 59 </LI> 60 <LI> 61 Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of 62 its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will 63 automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility 64 will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall 65 distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic. 66 </LI> 67 <LI> 68 On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6 69 and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks 70 both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder. 71 </LI> 72 <LI> 73 Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to 74 upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration 75 with private DNS systems easy. 76 </LI> 77 <LI> 78 Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records 79 for any or all local machines. 80 </LI> 81 </DIR> 82 83 <H2>Download.</H2> 84 85 <A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/"> Download</A> dnsmasq here. 86 The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage. 87 There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>. 88 Dnsmasq is part of the Debian distribution, it can be downloaded from 89 <A HREF="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dnsmasq/"> here</A> or installed using <TT>apt</TT>. 90 91 <H2>Links.</H2> 92 Damien Raude-Morvan has an article in French at <A HREF="http://www.drazzib.com/docs-dnsmasq.html">http://www.drazzib.com/docs-dnsmasq.html</A> 93 There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A 94 HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A> 95 and another at <A 96 HREF="http://www.linux.com/articles/149040">http://www.linux.com/articles/149040</A> 97 and Ilya Evseev has an article in Russian about dnsmasq to be found at 98 <A HREF="http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq"> 99 http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq</A>. Ismael Ull has an 100 article about dnsmasq in Spanish at <A HREF="http://www.mey-online.com.ar/blog/index.php/archives/guia-rapida-de-dnsmasq">http://www.mey-online.com.ar/blog/index.php/archives/guia-rapida-de-dnsmasq</A> 101 <H2>License.</H2> 102 Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution 103 for details. 104 105 <H2>Contact.</H2> 106 There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A 107 HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss"> 108 http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the 109 first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc. 110 Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A 111 HREF="mailto:simon (a] thekelleys.org.uk">simon (a] thekelleys.org.uk</A>. 112 </BODY> 113 114
