Internal DNS with DLINK Router

Question

Using a DLink 2640-T (ADSL2+Router). It cant resolve the internal hostnames. The manual is pointing to the firewall settings of the router to switch off the DNS-Blocking from external (which doesnt make sense to me). But even with that in place it just does not work. And all I got from DLink support: Please reset and try again... What I did, no change. Thanks for any advice

Answer 1

I seriously doubt that the D-LINK 2640-T has a built-in DDNS server. According to the Datasheet on that product it has DNS Relay support, and DDNS. The DDNS functionality is implemented as a DDNS client to update public DDNS sites so that your External IP of the DSL Router can automatically update DNS records on the Internet. I doubt they include a DDNS server that allows your "internal" clients to self-register with teh DSL modem/router device.

The DNS relay portion is to permit your "internal" clinets to point to the DSL router/modem and have it forward queries recursively to the Internet for resolution.

You will need to either use hosts files or run your own Internal DNS server.

Answer 2

Your clients DNS settings should be pointing to the Dlink router's IP address, so that the client asks your router for names. The router should reply all internal names to your client, and should use your ISP's DNS servers for external lookups. I'm not sure that "DNS-Blocking from external..." has anything to do with it.

Are your client computers able to register in DNS? What OS are they running?

Answer 3

In your case I'd strongly suggest running a real internal DNS server, rather than rely on the forwarder built into your router.

See my document draft-ietf-dnsext-dnsproxy for the whys and wherefores.

Answer 4

+1 to what netlinxman said -- either an internal DNS server (harder) or entries in each machines host file (easy) is probably the way to go.

Alternatively, if these on Windows machines then turning on WINS should allow them to find each other.

http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/windowsnetworkin1/g/bldef_wins.htm

The page for the 2640B version of this product does say that it supports DDNS, but this is for inbound access from the internet. http://www.d-link.com/products/resource.asp?pid=567&rid=2167&sec=0

d-link TV vido explaining DDNS: http://www.dlinktv.com/?vid=72

Answer 5

Answering my question (after continue the hard way learning about networking, which I am not expert in)

The router supports the internal DNS relay provided the clients are in the same workgroup ! This is straight forward for Windows clients. But Ubuntu, or better Linux, doesnt really now about the workgroup concept (I guess) until you install/activate samba.

Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install samba

Check /etc/samba/smb.conf for workgroup setting.

Now I can ping the Linux clients from the Windows clients (fast), but the reverse is very slow! "ping windowshostname" or ping "anylinuxname" from linux host results in a 2..3 seconds waiting time followed by very slow response times. Maybe I ask as another question here ..

Thanks for your feedback !