Router DNS – Setting Up a Router as a DNS Server Only

dd-wrtdnsrouter

I have a Linksys WRT54GL router that I don't need anymore, since I had to buy a 3G capable router (Dovado 3GN). As I only have a 3G connection at home, I want to optimize it as much as possible.

I want to setup a caching DNS server, including some blacklisting of ad domains. The router currently runs the DD-WRT firmware.

Is it possible to use this router as an ordinary computer, running only a DNS server, disabling all other features such as DHCP, WLAN, etc? Connecting it to my other router, should I simply run a cable into the WAN-port of the Linksys router?

Best Answer

The basic idea is sound. Yes you can setup an older router to perform services for your network. I would use OpenWRT, connect a LAN port of the router to another switch on your network and I would setup DNSMasq for handling the various DNS tasks you identified.

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It's good that you're using DNSMasq.

You can configure what you want in the Services (> Services) tab, in the DNSMasq > Additional DNSMasq Options box, but first, you'll want to clear those Static DNS fields. Static DNS fields in "Setup > Basic Setup"

Add the following to the DNSMasq options box:

dhcp-option= option:dns-server, 192.168.10.10 # DHCP option 006

server = 8.8.8.8 # DNSMasq will use these servers for forwarding the DNS requests that it can't serve
server = 8.8.4.4

Accessing a router which isn’t a DHCP server

DHCP server does not necessarily mean default gateway.

If you are not using the DHCP server on your router, you need to either

set up another DHCP server on another computer or something else somewhere
assign IPs manually to all devices

Clients reach the DHCP server through broadcasts, i.e. traffic that is set to reach all nodes on your network. So nothing needs to know the IP of your DHCP server as long as the DHCP server is listening on something that is in the same subnet as the rest of your network.

Your DHCP server should be configured to hand out the router's IP as the default gateway.

Per your situation, if all you did was disable the DHCP server, the IP of the router probably didn't change and you can still use the same IP to get to it. If you do NOT have a DHCP server elsewhere on your network, try setting your IP to 192.168.X.44 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 - X is probably going to be 0 or 1 - then you can probably reach your router at 192.168.X.1 or 192.168.X.254.

Best Answer

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DD-WRT serving additional DNS servers instead of just the router’s IP

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