release/src/router/dnsmasq/doc.html

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   3 <TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE>
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  11 <td align="middle" valign="middle"><h1>Dnsmasq</h1></td>
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  14
  15 Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP
  16  server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a
  17  small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are
  18  not in the global DNS. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS
  19  server and allows machines with DHCP-allocated addresses
  20  to appear in the DNS with names configured either in each host or
  21  in a central configuration file. Dnsmasq supports static and dynamic
  22  DHCP leases and BOOTP/TFTP/PXE for network booting of diskless machines.
  23 <P>
  24  Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and
  25 connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL
  26 connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to
  27 1000 clients is known to work) where low
  28 resource use and ease of configuration are important.
  29 <P>
  30 Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), Android, *BSD,
  31 Solaris and Mac OS X.
  32 Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions:
  33 Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora,
  34 Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l,
  35 CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and
  36 Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in
  37 Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project.
  38 <P>
  39 Dnsmasq provides the following features:
  40 <DIR>
  41
  42 <LI>
  43 The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and
  44 doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers
  45 <LI>
  46 Clients which try to do DNS lookups while  a modem link to the
  47 internet is down will time out immediately.
  48 </LI>
  49 <LI>
  50 Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall
  51 machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all
  52 be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine.
  53 </LI>
  54 <LI>
  55 The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and
  56 multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and
  57 supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists.
  58 Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically
  59 included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or
  60 centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq
  61 config file.
  62 </LI>
  63 <LI>
  64 Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name
  65 mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and
  66 improving performance (especially on modem connections).
  67 </LI>
  68 <LI>
  69 Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of
  70 its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will
  71 automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility
  72 will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall
  73 distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic.
  74 </LI>
  75 <LI>
  76 On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6
  77 and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks
  78 both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder.
  79 </LI>
  80 <LI>
  81 Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to
  82 upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration
  83 with private DNS systems easy.
  84 </LI>
  85 <LI>
  86 Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records
  87 for any or all local machines.
  88 </LI>
  89 </DIR>
  90
  91 <H2>Get code.</H2>
  92
  93 <A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/">Download</A> dnsmasq here.
  94 The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage.
  95 There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>.
  96
  97 Dnsmasq has a git repository which contains the complete release
  98 history of version 2 and development history from 2.60. You can
  99 <A HREF="http://thekelleys.org.uk/gitweb/?p=dnsmasq.git;a=summary">browse</A>
 100 the repo, or get a copy using git protocol with the command
 101
 102 <PRE><TT>git clone git://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq.git </TT></PRE>
 103
 104 <H2>License.</H2>
 105 Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution
 106 for details.
 107
 108 <H2>Contact.</H2>
 109 There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A
 110 HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss">
 111 http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the
 112 first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc.
 113 Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A
 114 HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>.
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