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Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]1<HTML>
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3<TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE>
4</HEAD>
5<BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE">
6<H1 ALIGN=center>Dnsmasq</H1>
Simon Kelley3d8df262005-08-29 12:19:27 +0100[diff] [blame]7Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]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
Simon Kelley832af0b2007-01-21 20:01:28 +0000[diff] [blame]14 DHCP leases and BOOTP/TFTP for network booting of diskless machines.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]15<P>
16 Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and
17connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL
Simon Kelley1b7ecd12007-02-05 14:57:57 +0000[diff] [blame]18connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to
191000 clients is known to work) where low
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]20resource use and ease of configuration are important.
21<P>
Simon Kelley824af852008-02-12 20:43:05 +0000[diff] [blame^]22Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD,
23Solaris and Mac OS X.
Simon Kelleyde379512004-06-22 20:23:33 +0100[diff] [blame]24Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions:
Simon Kelley4011c4e2006-10-28 16:26:19 +0100[diff] [blame]25Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora,
Simon Kelley7cebd202006-05-06 14:13:33 +0100[diff] [blame]26Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l,
27CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and
Simon Kelley4011c4e2006-10-28 16:26:19 +0100[diff] [blame]28Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in
29Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]30<P>
31Dnsmasq provides the following features:
32<DIR>
33
34<LI>
35The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and
36doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers
37<LI>
38Clients which try to do DNS lookups while a modem link to the
39internet is down will time out immediately.
40</LI>
41<LI>
42Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall
43machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all
44be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine.
45</LI>
46<LI>
Simon Kelley26128d22004-11-14 16:43:54 +0000[diff] [blame]47The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and
48multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and
49supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists.
50Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically
51included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or
52centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq
53config file.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]54</LI>
55<LI>
56Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name
57mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and
Simon Kelley26128d22004-11-14 16:43:54 +0000[diff] [blame]58improving performance (especially on modem connections).
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]59</LI>
60<LI>
61Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of
Simon Kelley824af852008-02-12 20:43:05 +0000[diff] [blame^]62its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]63automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility
64will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall
65distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic.
66</LI>
67<LI>
68On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6
69and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks
70both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder.
71</LI>
72<LI>
73Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to
74upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration
75with private DNS systems easy.
76</LI>
77<LI>
Simon Kelley4011c4e2006-10-28 16:26:19 +0100[diff] [blame]78Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records
Simon Kelley26128d22004-11-14 16:43:54 +0000[diff] [blame]79for any or all local machines.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]80</LI>
81</DIR>
82
83<H2>Download.</H2>
84
Simon Kelleyde379512004-06-22 20:23:33 +0100[diff] [blame]85<A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/"> Download</A> dnsmasq here.
Simon Kelley4011c4e2006-10-28 16:26:19 +0100[diff] [blame]86The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage.
Simon Kelley832af0b2007-01-21 20:01:28 +0000[diff] [blame]87There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]88Dnsmasq 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
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]91<H2>Links.</H2>
Simon Kelley3d8df262005-08-29 12:19:27 +0100[diff] [blame]92There is an article in German on dnsmasq at <A
93HREF="http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html">http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html</A>
Simon Kelleydfa666f2004-08-02 18:27:27 +0100[diff] [blame]94and Damien Raude-Morvan has one in French at <A HREF="http://www.drazzib.com/docs-dnsmasq.html">http://www.drazzib.com/docs-dnsmasq.html</A>
Simon Kelley26128d22004-11-14 16:43:54 +0000[diff] [blame]95There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A
96HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A>
Simon Kelley0a852542005-03-23 20:28:59 +0000[diff] [blame]97and Ilya Evseev has an article in Russian about dnsmasq to be found at <A HREF="http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq"> http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq</A>
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]98<H2>License.</H2>
99Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution
100for details.
101
102<H2>Contact.</H2>
Simon Kelley26128d22004-11-14 16:43:54 +0000[diff] [blame]103There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A
104HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss">
105http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the
106first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc.
107Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A
108HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>.
Simon Kelley9e4abcb2004-01-22 19:47:41 +0000[diff] [blame]109</BODY>
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