[UFO Chicago] implementing internal DNS

[Nate Riffe]

Politik Durden said this (probably recently):
> Woah, this sounds interesting. You mean people have figured out how to flash
> their routers with Linux ? Any details on how to do this ? The web based admin
> console for my Motorola allows you to browse to a file that contains firmware
> upgrades. So I'm guessing people have reverse engineered the file format and
> just made a file that flashes the device to a Linux build ? I gotta try
> this....post any details you have please :-) Thanks !!!!!!

Yes, people have done this.  I personally use OpenWRT on Linksys
WRT54G and WRT54GS hardware, although the OpenWRT distribution is
compatible with a wide range of consumer router hardware.  There are
also several other such "alternate firmware" Linux distributions, many
of which are based on OpenWRT.  Such distributions typically use
dnsmasq to handle both DHCP server and DNS functions.  The dnsmasq
software is extremely flexible and can do what you're looking for.
So, voiding the warranty on your Motorola device is one option.

Another option is to disable the DHCP server on your current router
and run a DHCP server on a different host on the network.  This opens
up many more possibilities, since you could use pretty much any
hardware, platform, and DHCP server and DNS software you want.
Regardless of what hardware and software you choose, you'll want the
following basic configuration:

1) DHCP server hands out IP addresses from the same block as your current
Motorola router, with all of the same routing information.
2) DHCP server specifies a name server of your choosing (most likely
on the same host as the DHCP server)
3) The name server that your DHCP directs clients to use will respond
to all of your internal names from authoritative data and resolve all
other queries via either the Motorola router or via your ISP's name
servers (or both, or via root servers).

In the past, I have successfully implemented configurations like this
using ISC dhcpd and BIND on Linux, dnsmasq on Linux, and Microsoft
DHCP Service and DNS Service on Windows.

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