Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

rgautier
Apprentice

Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

I have DNS issues with the resolver on the Orbi DNS daemon/resolver - and they are NOT related to DHCP mis-assignment.  If I change the DNS manually on the devices to ignore the Orbi DNS resolver, and use either my provider modem or just straight to Google or CloudFlare DNS, everything works SWIMMINGLY.  I LOVE my signal coverage, and the flexibility of the mesh.  I LOVE the speeds I get...but DNS...just SUCKS.

 

And what's worse is that there are NO DHCP OPTIONS on the Orbi to set DNS for clients to use something else.  I turned off Armor because I thought maybe it was burping on DNS lookups while it checked to see if the site was 'ok' or not.

 

And it fails on sites like YOUTUBE, for crying out loud.  A wait of 5 seconds and a reload, and DNS lookups start working again, but depending on the device, app and local DNS caching of the bad response, it's a right pain in the rear end.

 

I'm thinking of setting up a pi-hole and enabling DHCP from that device JUST to get DNS resolvers to be anything BUT this device. 

 

This is so easy to fix by two things - 1) ADD THE DNS OPTION TO THE DHCP CONFIG.  Let me set the DNS resolver (to, say my pi-hole, or to OpenDNS).  I don't NEED to use the Orbi DNS resolver if I don't want Armor.   2) DEBUG AND FIX THE DNS DAEMON ON THE BOX!! 

 

I bought the Orbi with 2 satellites from Costo, and I still have the box because even though I want mesh, my old Nighthawk and repeater worked so much better...and I am debating bringing it back.

 

Problem was CONSTANT with 3.2.15.5 - just upgraded to .16.6 - crossing my fingers that this is fixed....but GOD this bug is irritating as hell.

Model: RBR50|Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 1 of 11
rgautier
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

Correction - I guess I have the RBR750 - The WiFi 6 version of this router

Message 2 of 11
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

What is the mfr and model # of your ISP modem/ONT? 

 

FYI, Most NG routers do not offer any kind of DNS proxy bypass. Been like this for a long time. Something NG seems to keep in place. 

 

IF your seeing DNS issues, lets try to resolve them first and see if there is any further help needed by NG support. 

 

I have a 8 Series Orbi AX, have not seen any DNS issue. I'm on a cable ISP. I dont prefer to use Armor.

Message 3 of 11
rgautier
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

Calling it a 'proxy bypass' makes it sound like forgiving the router provider for not including basic functionality for a DHCP server, which is, providing options for the DHCP assignment.  It's not proxy bypass - because the router is not a proxy.  It has a lightweight DNS resolver/cacher in it.  My hypothesis is that whatever they did with Armor is probably never REALLY turned off, and it's interfering or dying. 

 

I just prefer to NOT use the all-in-one router for a DNS caching server.  There are so many better options (pi-hole, for example).  I'm probably going to install DHCP server on that server, but it becomes complex with the Guest WiFi addresses (and the router not having a DHCP forwarding option).

 

Since the DNS problems are randomly occuring (and go away in <5 seconds), they're impoossible to debug, even though they cause havoc with apps on clients..  Even the telnet option to the router has been taken away, so I'm not going to have any capability to REALLY assess what's wrong.  My Nighthawk never had these issues - although I don't know that it had any DHCP options, either.

 

I replaced the Nighthawk with the Orbi, and there's been no changes to the ONT/ISP (FiOS - 100 Gb).  I don't use FiOS DNS, though - I point to CloudFlare on both devices (the FiOS router and this one).

Message 4 of 11
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

To be sure that Armor is full disabled, either do a full reboot of the RBR or factory reset the RBR and setup from scratch and don't enable Armor this time after the setup wizard completes.

 

The only router mfr that I know that supports DNS proxy/relay options that allow users to fully disable or enable it is D-Link. I think Ubiquity might allow this as well though not for sure. Since NG seems to only allow DNS from the routers IP address for DNS, I would say this is a proxy. 

 

 

Good Luck. 

 

Message 5 of 11
msinex
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

@rgautier  Having the exact same issues as you are, and have been trying to fix it for months without any success.  Link below-

 

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/Intermittent-DNS-Errors-and-WiFi-Issues/m-p/1971967/highlig...

 

 

 

 

Message 6 of 11
arlomike
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

When I got my 850 last month, I ran into this same issue. NG is too stubborn to allow for their DHCP server to hand out a DNS server you specify and insists that it must use their recursive DNS server. I gave up and setup pihole.
Message 7 of 11
amenic
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

Pretty brutal to pay $700 USD for a router and then have to look at 3rd party software to make it work properly (PiHole / Pfsense).

 

C'mon Netgear!

 

Message 8 of 11
rgautier
Apprentice

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

Indeed - I bought a pi to create a pi-hole DNS/DHCP, but realize now that I need two of them (one for the guest network) to hand out addresses, because there's no 'DHCP forwarder' config on the Orbi "router" (laugh, laugh). I really don't understand why consumer devices don't come with more SOFTWARE options when it wouldn't cost the manufacturers more than a few hours to include them.  The hardware on my Orbi is to-die-for, but from a software perspective....YUCK!

Message 9 of 11
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

@amenic NG is always used DNS proxy on there routers. Been like this for years. I few others as well. Only one I know of that allows users to bypass DNS proxy is D-Link. There maybe others as well.

 

@rgautier These are home class routers thus NG and other router mfr tune the software and UI more towards the average home user whom, just wants ease of setup and use. Some router mfr have taken to this line of design for the home class router over the years. NG still seems to have lots of features, just maybe ones that the more advanced user wants that NG doesn't incluce. 

 

Someting to post about there though:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Idea-Exchange-For-Home/idb-p/idea-exchange-for-home

 

Good Luck





 

Message 10 of 11
ethan-p
Aspirant

Re: Orbi RBR50 DNS - PLEASE ADD DHCP OPTIONS TO SET CLIENTS TO ALT DNS

I just got my RBR50 Orbi to issue external DNS addresses via DHCP.  I'm not sure if this breaks any other features, but everything seems to work internet-wise.  I also doubt that this writes to persistent memory, but it will work as long as you don't have to reboot the router.  You'll need to rewrite the DHCP server's config file and reset the DHCP service.

 

Try this (I'm writing this assuming that you don't know how to use vi and don't know much Linux command line, apologies if this is too descriptive):

  1. In your web browser, go to 192.168.1.1/debug, login, and enable telnet
  2. Open a command prompt and telnet to the device and login using your admin username and password
  3. In the command line, type: cp /tmp/udhcpd.conf /tmp/udhcpd.conf.bak     (this creates a backup file in case you want to switch it back)
  4. In the command line, type: vi /tmp/udhcpd.conf
  5. Look for the line that reads "option dns 192.168.1.1" and use the arrow keys to move the cursor to that line
  6. Delete "192.168.1.1" (you'll need to use the delete key, not the backspace)
  7. Press the "i" key
  8. Enter your list of DNS servers, delinated by a space (e.g. "8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4")
  9. Press the Esc key, then type ":wq" and enter.  This will save the configuration file
  10. In the command line, type: ps |grep dhcpd   - this will bring up a list of dhcpd processes - you should see something like "11022 root 2456 S udhcpd /tmp/udhcpd.conf".  The first numbers before root is the process ID, this is what you need for the enxt command
  11. In the command line, type: kill <process ID> - in my case, it was "kill 11022"
  12. In the command line, type udhcpd /tmp/udhcpd.conf

Your router should now assign DHCP addresses to external DNS servers to any device that requests it.  This effectively bypasses the internal caching DNS.  It will break things like connecting to routerlogin.net (you'll have to get to your configuration page by going to 192.168.1.1, or whatever you've configured it to), and I doubt that this change will survive a reboot of your router (I haven't tested this yet)...but it works.

 

Cheers,

Ethan

 

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