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Single data point, but I've been running a home DNS server (bind) for many years; it's set to be authoritative for the .local domain and caching for everything
by hazeii 8y ago
Single data point, but I've been running a home DNS server (bind) for many years; it's set to be authoritative for the .local domain and caching for everything else (except for major tracking and advertising sites, which it blackholes).
For hits that are in the cache (the usual case) it's obviously faster than going out to the 'net,. The black-holing combined with ad-blockers mean browsing is a lot faster and considerably more peaceful.
In terms of maintenance, it's no real effort other than updating every few years (being behind NAT the security risks aren't huge) and it means the entire household sees the benefit (plus access to webservers/wiki's etc on the .local domain).
Obviously the downside is it needs to be on something that runs 24x7 and a modicum of IT skills are required to set it up. One other catch is that your ISP might block you for not using their DNS; BT (UK ISP) did this, but it is possible to turn off this 'security feature' via a rather obfuscated web page (may have changed since I last did it).
- kosinus 8y agoThe .local TLD is reserved for mDNS. You may run into devices that completely refuse to resolve hosts in it using regular DNS.
- hazeii 8y agoIndeed, 'zero-configuration' only applies to users.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago> One other catch is that your ISP might block you for not using their DNS; BT (UK ISP) did this Erm ... what? How does that work? If they don't see DNS requests from you at their resolver for a week, they disable your connection?!
- hazeii 8y agoWhat happened is going online resulted in everything being redirected to a BT page saying you're not using our DNS and to change settings so you do. Some googling revealed a few people who'd had the same issue and found the (obscure) page that allowed you to undo the block. I assume they detected it simply by seeing DNS queries going to non-BT servers. Note this was a few years ago when it was pretty common for PC malware to hijack DNS requests, so could be it's changed in the meantime. N.B. I also recall BT redirecting requests for non-existent domains to some partner of theirs, I assume experimentally as I haven't seen or heard of that for a while.
- _puk 8y ago"N.B. I also recall BT redirecting requests for non-existent domains to some partner of theirs, I assume experimentally as I haven't seen or heard of that for a while" They are still doing this. I ran into it just yesterday. They do however make it very easy (click a couple of links) to turn it off.
- hazeii 8y agoStill, interception of communications is a serious crime (unless your monopoly-scale ISP does it, of course). Thanks for the update (if somewhat depressing to know they still get away with it).
- 7ewis 8y agoDid you change DNS using the BT Hub? Mine forces me to use their DNS, would love to turn it off at a router level. I know I can buy a new router but I can't justify that right now.
- hazeii 8y agoNever used the BT hub, I've always bought my own router (I've also had a linux box as a firewall between the router and home network since the days of dial-up).
- TabbedFonzo 8y agoThe work around for this (unfortunately) is to use another device to dish out DHCP. I have setup my Pi Hole to serve this and my DNS