Custom domains with dnsmasq

About

With dnsmasq you are able to create custom domains within your network or route existing domains to different ip's. It's very handy when you want to create home web which will have web links to your NAS storage, printer and other clever things within your household. This can be also used to block access to domains by routing them to different ip address, so you can block advertising within some applications.

Adjust router configuration

1. Go to Administration -> System
2. Enable: Enable JFFS custom scripts and configs config option
3. Enable: Enable SSH config option
4. Go to LAN -> DNS Filter (Parental Controls -> DNSFilter on older models) (LAN -> DNS Director on firmware version >= 388.1)
5. Disable: Enable DNS-based Filtering

Adjust DHCP Server Options

1. Go to LAN -> DHCP Server
2. DNS Server 1 should contain your router's IP address
3. If Advertise routers IP in addition to user specified DNS is enabled all custom DNS address will be appended to the address list given to the clients when they lease an IP address. So if you want to be able to resolve names without specifying the router's address as the name server to do the resolution then make sure this setting is turned off.
4. Go to WAN -> Internet Connection. Turn off Forward local domain queries to upstream DNS to prevent your private DNS resolution requests from being passed to the Internet.

Connect to your router

Connect to your router through SSH (you can use PUTTY on windows). Default IP address is 192.168.1.1, use credentials as in web interface. (How to use putty)

Edit dnsmasq config options

1. Create configuration file for dnsmasq: touch /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add

2. Edit configuration file: vi /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add.

   - for typing press I, to quit typing press ESC, to delete line press ESC and then write dd and press ENTER

3. Add configuration for resolving domain names into dnsmasq.conf.add

   • Resolve one domain to IP, Explanation: resolves test.com domain to ip 127.0.0.1 or ::1 when on ipv6

       address=/test.com/127.0.0.1
       address=/test.com/::1
     

   • Resolve more domains to same IP, Explanation: resolves listed domains to ip 127.0.0.1 (you can write more)

       address=/test1.com/test2.com/127.0.0.1
     

   • To save and quit editor quit typing with ESC and write :wq and hit ENTER

Last steps

1. Reboot router with reboot command in ssh or through web interface. (Rebooting is not strictly necessary; restarting the dnsmasq service is sufficient: service restart_dnsmasq)
2. Go to Administration -> System and disable Enable SSH config option

More

• You can run webserver directly on the router howto
• For more dnsmasq options check manual