Small (SoHo) LAN, how to manage local DNS etc.?

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 03:38:01PM +0300, Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 10:49:38AM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> > What's the "Ubuntu" way to manage DNS etc. on a small Home/Office LAN?
> > 
> > I have a small LAN running at home with, at this precise moment, eight
> > devices on the LAN.  These comprise (usually) three or four computers
> > running xubuntu, a windows computer, a printer, a DECT phone base
> > station and the NAT router that connects them all to the internet.
> > 
> > I need a manageable way to handle these by assigning IP addresses (i.e.
> > DHCP) and providing name services (i.e. DNS) such that I can use names
> > for the various systems.
> > 
> > So how should one manage this sort of a system?  I can run DHCP on the
> > NAT router but that doesn't provide DNS for the LAN so I don't get names
> > for my systems.
> 
> Why doesn't your NAT router provide DNS for the LAN?
> 
It just doesn't (it's a Draytek Vigor 2820n, excellent in many ways but
doesn't do local DNS).

In fact a Google search suggests that quite a lot of newer routers are
like mine, they *don't* provide local name-based DNS.


> > How do people handle this sort of thing?
> 
> Set up DNS on the router.
> 
See above, doesn't work on my Draytek Vigor.


> I believe home routers (at least newer ones) automatically export DHCP
> names via DNS -- which works if your DHCP clients supply their names to
> the DHCP servers.  I don't remember if Ubuntu does that; I remember that
> the dhcp3-client package in Debian didn't used to do that a while ago.
> 
> Alternatively, all consumer home routers I've seen have a web interface
> for assigning static IPs by MAC address and for defining local DNS name
> -> IP mappings.  This is manual and tedious.
> 
I have exactly that *except* for the names.  I.e. I can set a fixed IP
address for each MAC address in the router but I can't set the
associated name.

... and don't recommend that I use another router!  :-)   The 2820n is,
as I said, excellent in most ways and can do one thing that very few
other (reasonable cost) routers can do - it load balances two WAN
connections which is very important for me.

-- 
Chris Green