[people/ms/dnsmasq.git] / doc.html

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<HEAD>
<TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE"> 
<H1 ALIGN=center>Dnsmasq</H1> 
Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP
 server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a 
 small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are 
 not in the global DNS. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS 
 server and allows machines with DHCP-allocated addresses
 to appear in the DNS with names configured either in each host or
 in a central configuration file. Dnsmasq supports static and dynamic 
 DHCP leases and BOOTP for network booting of diskless machines.
<P>
 Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and 
connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL
connection but would be a good choice for any small network where low
resource use and ease of configuration are important. 
<P>
Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD and
Mac OS X.
Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions:
Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora,
Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l,
CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and
Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in
Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project.
<P>
Dnsmasq provides the following features:
<DIR>

<LI> 
The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and
doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers
<LI>
Clients which try to do DNS lookups while  a modem link to the
internet is down will time out immediately.
</LI>
<LI>
Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall
machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all
be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine.
</LI>
<LI>
The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and
multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and
supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists.
Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically 
included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or
centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq
config file.
</LI>
<LI>
Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name
mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and
improving performance (especially on modem connections). 
</LI>
<LI>
Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of
it's upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will
automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility
will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall
distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic.
</LI>
<LI>
On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6 
and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks
both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder.
</LI>
<LI>
Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to
upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration
with private DNS systems easy.
</LI>
<LI>
Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records
for any or all local machines.
</LI>
</DIR>

<H2>Download.</H2>

<A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/"> Download</A> dnsmasq here. 
The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage.
There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A>.
Dnsmasq is part of the Debian distribution, it can be downloaded from 
<A HREF="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dnsmasq/"> here</A> or installed using <TT>apt</TT>.

<H2>Links.</H2>
There is an article in German on dnsmasq at <A
HREF="http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html">http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html</A>
and 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>
There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A
HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A>
and 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>
<H2>License.</H2>
Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution 
for details.

<H2>Contact.</H2>
There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A
HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss">
http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the
first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc.
Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A
HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>.
</BODY>
Commit	Line	Data
9e4abcb5 SK	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>
3d8df260	7	Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP
9e4abcb5 SK	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 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 small network where low
	19	resource use and ease of configuration are important.
	20	<P>
feba5c1d SK	21	Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD and
feba5c1d SK	22	Mac OS X.
de37951c	23	Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions:
4011c4e0	24	Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora,
7cebd20f SK	25	Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l,
7cebd20f SK	26	CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and
4011c4e0 SK	27	Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in
4011c4e0 SK	28	Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project.
9e4abcb5 SK	29	<P>
	30	Dnsmasq provides the following features:
	31	<DIR>
	32
	33	<LI>
	34	The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and
	35	doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers
	36	<LI>
	37	Clients which try to do DNS lookups while a modem link to the
	38	internet is down will time out immediately.
	39	</LI>
	40	<LI>
	41	Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall
	42	machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all
	43	be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine.
	44	</LI>
	45	<LI>
26128d27 SK	46	The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and
	47	multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and
	48	supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists.
	49	Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically
	50	included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or
	51	centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq
	52	config file.
9e4abcb5 SK	53	</LI>
	54	<LI>
	55	Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name
	56	mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and
26128d27	57	improving performance (especially on modem connections).
9e4abcb5 SK	58	</LI>
	59	<LI>
	60	Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of
	61	it's upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will
	62	automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility
	63	will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall
	64	distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic.
	65	</LI>
	66	<LI>
	67	On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6
	68	and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks
	69	both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder.
	70	</LI>
	71	<LI>
	72	Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to
	73	upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration
	74	with private DNS systems easy.
	75	</LI>
	76	<LI>
4011c4e0	77	Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records
26128d27	78	for any or all local machines.
9e4abcb5 SK	79	</LI>
	80	</DIR>
	81
	82	<H2>Download.</H2>
	83
de37951c	84	<A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/"> Download</A> dnsmasq here.
4011c4e0 SK	85	The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage.
4011c4e0 SK	86	There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A>.
9e4abcb5 SK	87	Dnsmasq is part of the Debian distribution, it can be downloaded from
	88	<A HREF="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dnsmasq/"> here</A> or installed using <TT>apt</TT>.
	89
9e4abcb5	90	<H2>Links.</H2>
3d8df260 SK	91	There is an article in German on dnsmasq at <A
3d8df260 SK	92	HREF="http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html">http://www.linuxnetmag.com/de/issue7/m7dnsmasq1.html</A>
dfa666f2	93	and 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>
26128d27 SK	94	There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A
26128d27 SK	95	HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A>
0a852541	96	and 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>
9e4abcb5 SK	97	<H2>License.</H2>
	98	Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution
	99	for details.
	100
	101	<H2>Contact.</H2>
26128d27 SK	102	There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A
	103	HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss">
	104	http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the
	105	first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc.
	106	Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A
	107	HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>.
9e4abcb5 SK	108	</BODY>
9e4abcb5 SK	109