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> 7Dnsmasq 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 17connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL 18connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to 191000 clients is known to work) where low 20resource use and ease of configuration are important. 21<P> 22Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD, 23Solaris and Mac OS X. 24Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions: 25Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora, 26Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l, 27CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and 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. 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> 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. 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 58improving performance (especially on modem connections). 59</LI> 60<LI> 61Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of 62its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will 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> 78Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records 79for 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. 86The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage. 87There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>. 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 91<H2>Links.</H2> 92Damien 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> 93There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A 94HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A> 95and another at <A 96HREF="http://www.linux.com/articles/149040">http://www.linux.com/articles/149040</A> 97and Ilya Evseev has an article in Russian about dnsmasq to be found at 98<A HREF="http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq"> 99http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq</A>. Ismael Ull has an 100article 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> 102Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution 103for details. 104 105<H2>Contact.</H2> 106There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A 107HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss"> 108http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the 109first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc. 110Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A 111HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>. 112</BODY> 113 114