1<HTML> 2<HEAD> 3<TITLE> Dnsmasq - a DNS forwarder for NAT firewalls.</TITLE> 4<link rel="icon" 5 href="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/images/favicon.ico"> 6</HEAD> 7<BODY BGCOLOR="WHITE"> 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 15Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP 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 22 DHCP leases and BOOTP/TFTP/PXE for network booting of diskless machines. 23<P> 24 Dnsmasq is targeted at home networks using NAT and 25connected to the internet via a modem, cable-modem or ADSL 26connection but would be a good choice for any smallish network (up to 271000 clients is known to work) where low 28resource use and ease of configuration are important. 29<P> 30Supported platforms include Linux (with glibc and uclibc), Android, *BSD, 31Solaris and Mac OS X. 32Dnsmasq is included in at least the following Linux distributions: 33Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, Suse, Fedora, 34Smoothwall, IP-Cop, floppyfw, Firebox, LEAF, Freesco, fli4l, 35CoyoteLinux, Endian Firewall and 36Clarkconnect. It is also available as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD ports and is used in 37Linksys wireless routers (dd-wrt, openwrt and the stock firmware) and the m0n0wall project. 38<P> 39Dnsmasq provides the following features: 40<DIR> 41 42<LI> 43The DNS configuration of machines behind the firewall is simple and 44doesn't depend on the details of the ISP's dns servers 45<LI> 46Clients which try to do DNS lookups while a modem link to the 47internet is down will time out immediately. 48</LI> 49<LI> 50Dnsmasq will serve names from the /etc/hosts file on the firewall 51machine: If the names of local machines are there, then they can all 52be addressed without having to maintain /etc/hosts on each machine. 53</LI> 54<LI> 55The integrated DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases and 56multiple networks and IP ranges. It works across BOOTP relays and 57supports DHCP options including RFC3397 DNS search lists. 58Machines which are configured by DHCP have their names automatically 59included in the DNS and the names can specified by each machine or 60centrally by associating a name with a MAC address in the dnsmasq 61config file. 62</LI> 63<LI> 64Dnsmasq caches internet addresses (A records and AAAA records) and address-to-name 65mappings (PTR records), reducing the load on upstream servers and 66improving performance (especially on modem connections). 67</LI> 68<LI> 69Dnsmasq can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of 70its upstream nameservers from ppp or dhcp configuration. It will 71automatically reload this information if it changes. This facility 72will be of particular interest to maintainers of Linux firewall 73distributions since it allows dns configuration to be made automatic. 74</LI> 75<LI> 76On IPv6-enabled boxes, dnsmasq can both talk to upstream servers via IPv6 77and offer DNS service via IPv6. On dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) boxes it talks 78both protocols and can even act as IPv6-to-IPv4 or IPv4-to-IPv6 forwarder. 79</LI> 80<LI> 81Dnsmasq can be configured to send queries for certain domains to 82upstream servers handling only those domains. This makes integration 83with private DNS systems easy. 84</LI> 85<LI> 86Dnsmasq supports MX and SRV records and can be configured to return MX records 87for any or all local machines. 88</LI> 89</DIR> 90 91<H2>Get code.</H2> 92 93<A HREF="http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/">Download</A> dnsmasq here. 94The tarball includes this documentation, source, and manpage. 95There is also a <A HREF="CHANGELOG"> CHANGELOG</A> and a <A HREF="FAQ">FAQ</A>. 96 97Dnsmasq has a git repository which contains the complete release 98history of version 2 and development history from 2.60. You can 99<A HREF="http://thekelleys.org.uk/gitweb/?p=dnsmasq.git;a=summary">browse</A> 100the repo, or get a copy using git protocol with the command 101 102<PRE><TT>git clone git://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq.git </TT></PRE> 103 104<H2>License.</H2> 105Dnsmasq is distributed under the GPL. See the file COPYING in the distribution 106for details. 107 108<H2>Contact.</H2> 109There is a dnsmasq mailing list at <A 110HREF="http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss"> 111http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss</A> which should be the 112first location for queries, bugreports, suggestions etc. 113Dnsmasq was written by Simon Kelley. You can contact me at <A 114HREF="mailto:simon@thekelleys.org.uk">simon@thekelleys.org.uk</A>. 115</BODY> 116 117
