NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Orbi as AP - DNS Settings
When I setup my RBR50 it was my router and I set it up to pull DNS from a dedicated DNS server. Now my RBR50 is in AP mode and the dedicated server has changed IPs. How can I update the Orbi? Do I ne...
When in AP mode and DNS configurations need to be done at the main host router, not with the Orbi in AP mode. When in AP mode, Orbi acts as a data traffic pass thru for wifi devices. So data flows thru the Orbi to the main host router which handles DNS configurations and requests at this point.
stevefxp wrote:When I setup my RBR50 it was my router and I set it up to pull DNS from a dedicated DNS server. Now my RBR50 is in AP mode and the dedicated server has changed IPs. How can I update the Orbi? Do I need to go back to router mode, as I do not see a way to do it in AP mode.
Individual devices have two ways to know which IP address to use for DNS queries:
- The DNS can be defined on the device. just as a static IP address can be defined on the device.
This is clearly impractical when there are a lot of devices, however some users have elected to do so in specific situations.
For example, when Orbi is acting as a router, the only DNS address it gives out is itself.
Orbi acts as a DNS relay. It passes queries on to whatever DNS server is defined in the Orbi and caches the result so that the next query can be resolved more quickly.
When users want to bypass Orbi and go directly to a DNS server, they have to set the DNS IP on their device. - A more practical way to learn the IP of a DNS server is through the DHCP mechanism.
Whichever router assigns local IP addresses will pass a recommended DNS address along with the local IP.
If the Orbi is the router, it will pass its own IP address for DNS.
Some users do not want this, so they set up their own DHCP server, such as using the ISP router or running DHCP on a local machine, where they have more control over what DNS is passed to each device.
So, if your network was working in AP mode, then the router assigning IP addresses was handing out the IP of the DNS server. If the DNS server has changed IP's, then the router needs to be changed to reflect that IP address.
Note that this requirement is the same whether Orbi is the DHCP server or some other router is the DHCP server. For example, if I set up my Orbi to use Google DNS (8.8.8.8) and Google changed the IP to 9.9.9.9, my Orbi would not know that until I changed the settings.