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Mike Sampson

Linux Systems Administrator

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02 Jul 2009

New Router, dnsmasq and Jeff Golblum!

I'm currently running a combined router and file server. In the interests of security I'm in the process of setting up a new router. I'm installing Debian Lenny on the router as it doesn't get rebooted often (in the past it has gone over a year without being rebooted) and a rolling release distribution such as Arch doesn't suit this usage pattern.

I normally use dhcpd and bind for serving up dhcp and dns but this time tried dnsmasq. Dnsmasq is described on it's webpage as:

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.

Setup is dead easy. Add your local machines to /etc/hosts and check that you have a dns server listed in your /etc/resolv.conf file. I used OpenDNS's servers for this. Once this is done you will be able to resolve global names and local names. Much easier than mucking around with bind zone files. I wish I had tried it earlier.

Earlier this week one of Australia's adopted, he is actually from New Zealand, prize idiots Richard Wilkins reported the untimely death of Jeff Goldblum. Stephen Colbert's response is fitting and quite funny.

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