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

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE>
<link rel="icon"
      href="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/favicon.ico">
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE"> 
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle"><img border="0" src="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/icon.png" /></td>
<td align="middle" valign="middle"><h1>Dnsmasq</h1></td>
<td align="right" valign="middle"><img border="0" src="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/icon.png" /></td></tr>
</table>

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/TFTP/PXE 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 smallish network (up to
1000 clients is known to work) where low
resource use and ease of configuration are important. 
<P>
Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD,
Solaris 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
its 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> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</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>
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>
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 another at <A
HREF="http://www.linux.com/articles/149040">http://www.linux.com/articles/149040</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>. Ismael Ull has an
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>
<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>
28866e95 SK	4	<link rel="icon"
28866e95 SK	5	href="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/favicon.ico">
9e4abcb5 SK	6	</HEAD>
9e4abcb5 SK	7	<BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE">
28866e95 SK	8	<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
	9	<tr>
	10	<td align="left" valign="middle"><img border="0" src="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/icon.png" /></td>
	11	<td align="middle" valign="middle"><h1>Dnsmasq</h1></td>
	12	<td align="right" valign="middle"><img border="0" src="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/icon.png" /></td></tr>
	13	</table>
	14
3d8df260	15	Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP
9e4abcb5 SK	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
7622fc06	22	DHCP leases and BOOTP/TFTP/PXE for network booting of diskless machines.
9e4abcb5 SK	23	<P>
	24	Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and
	25	connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL
1b7ecd11 SK	26	connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to
1b7ecd11 SK	27	1000 clients is known to work) where low
9e4abcb5 SK	28	resource use and ease of configuration are important.
9e4abcb5 SK	29	<P>
824af85b SK	30	Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), *BSD,
824af85b SK	31	Solaris and Mac OS X.
de37951c	32	Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions:
4011c4e0	33	Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora,
7cebd20f SK	34	Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l,
7cebd20f SK	35	CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and
4011c4e0 SK	36	Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in
4011c4e0 SK	37	Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project.
9e4abcb5 SK	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>
26128d27 SK	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.
9e4abcb5 SK	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
26128d27	66	improving performance (especially on modem connections).
9e4abcb5 SK	67	</LI>
	68	<LI>
	69	Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of
824af85b	70	its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will
9e4abcb5 SK	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>
4011c4e0	86	Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records
26128d27	87	for any or all local machines.
9e4abcb5 SK	88	</LI>
	89	</DIR>
	90
	91	<H2>Download.</H2>
	92
de37951c	93	<A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/"> Download</A> dnsmasq here.
4011c4e0	94	The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage.
832af0ba	95	There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>.
9e4abcb5 SK	96	Dnsmasq is part of the Debian distribution, it can be downloaded from
	97	<A HREF="http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dnsmasq/"> here</A> or installed using <TT>apt</TT>.
	98
9e4abcb5	99	<H2>Links.</H2>
73a08a24	100	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>
26128d27 SK	101	There is a good article about dnsmasq at <A
26128d27 SK	102	HREF="http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351">http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3377351</A>
73a08a24 SK	103	and another at <A
73a08a24 SK	104	HREF="http://www.linux.com/articles/149040">http://www.linux.com/articles/149040</A>
7622fc06 SK	105	and Ilya Evseev has an article in Russian about dnsmasq to be found at
	106	<A HREF="http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq">
	107	http://ilya-evseev.narod.ru/articles/dnsmasq</A>. Ismael Ull has an
	108	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>
9e4abcb5 SK	109	<H2>License.</H2>
	110	Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution
	111	for details.
	112
	113	<H2>Contact.</H2>
26128d27 SK	114	There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A
	115	HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss">
	116	http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the
	117	first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc.
	118	Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A
	119	HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>.
9e4abcb5 SK	120	</BODY>
9e4abcb5 SK	121