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Forum Discussion
thomasle
Apr 05, 2023Aspirant
DNS resolution for LAN devices (Orbi Pro SXR30)
I recently purchased the Orbi Pro SRX30 with two satellites for a home office. Everything is working great and it's an improvement over my previous Wifi router. One thing I miss is having the wireles...
- Apr 05, 2023
This is correct. The Orbi DNS mechanism does not resolve internal names. This is one reason some users turn to a different DNS server, such as Pi-hole, which does have this feature. I tested Pi-hole and verified that indeed it can resolve internal names. In my own case, I did see much advantage and just use the actual IP address for the small number of servers on my LAN.
Netgear has a forum where customers suggest changes to products:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home
This feature has been posted in that forum several times.
thomasle
Apr 05, 2023Aspirant
Thank you for the response. I need to clarify my question. All devices on the LAN are able to resolve external URL's via the Orbi to my ISP's DNS servers.
On my internal LAN, I have two TrueNas NAS enclosures, wireless printers, several Linux servers, an AIX server, layer 2/layer 3 switches, a couple MacOS laptops and Windows laptops. All devices are set to use DHCP and in the Orbi setup, I have address reservations set for everything except the MacOS & Windows laptops because I need the IP's to not change on some of the devices.
For example, I can no longer access either NAS enclosures by hostname (i.e. NAS01 or NAS02), instead I have to use the IP. Performing an nslookup from Windows or dig from Linux also does not resolve the hostname to IP. As a temporary solution, I've had to make the necessary entries in the hosts files on all devices. It's not ideal especially if I add devices to my internal network which means I have to change the hosts files on all of the devices again. My old Wifi router was able to perform LAN DNS resolution without making entries in the hosts files of all devices.
CrimpOn
Apr 05, 2023Guru - Experienced User
This is correct. The Orbi DNS mechanism does not resolve internal names. This is one reason some users turn to a different DNS server, such as Pi-hole, which does have this feature. I tested Pi-hole and verified that indeed it can resolve internal names. In my own case, I did see much advantage and just use the actual IP address for the small number of servers on my LAN.
Netgear has a forum where customers suggest changes to products:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home
This feature has been posted in that forum several times.
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