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My initial takeaway from this rant is this person doesn't understand how DNS works. If your ISP making a change is breaking resolution on your local LAN then y

My initial takeaway from this rant is this person doesn't understand how DNS works. If your ISP making a change is breaking resolution on your local LAN then you are doing it wrong, the problem is 100% on your end. If you are running properly functioning internal DNS, your ISP cannot make a change that will impact your LAN. Any OpenWRT device can do this out of the box with zero additional configuration.

duped 3y ago
> Any OpenWRT device can do this out of the box with zero additional configuration. Except you must use AT&T's modem when you buy their fiber, and you can't install OpenWRT on it. The rant is lamenting that the all in one modem/router isn't configurable at all, and you need to be using an aftermarket router for your LAN to have any kind of internal DNS.
- cptskippy 3y ago
  AT&T allows you to configure their Gateway in a passthrough mode that will allow you to use your own router without double NATing yourself.
  - duped 3y ago
    Sure, but the point was that you have to buy another gadget. And there's still a box you don't control that has to live in your basement (or wherever) doing some not insignificant lifting. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just configure the box you're paying for already to do the right thing?
- lxgr 3y ago
  Do you have to use their modem or their router? I've been using my own router across many ISPs over time, and almost all of them offered a "bridge" mode that would just hand a public IP to my own router over DHCP.
  - duped 3y ago
    You have to use their modem*. You can bring your own router which is what every nerd should probably be doing anyway, but there's no option for an off the shelf modem. * for fiber
ryandrake 3y ago
I think a surprising number of people probably just use an ISP-provided modem / router combo, allowing the ISP to set the LAN's DNS, decide how to hand out IPs through DHCP, and other configuration options that give them way too much control. A shrinking number of geeks use their own router, and a tiny fraction of that shrinking number even uses their own WAN interface.
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  Many of the posters here seem to be missing the point. 99.9% of customers using ISP supplied equipment don't care about internal DNS resolution, grandma just wants the internet to work and most consumer grade peripherals like printers just use zeroconf anyway, bypassing DNS completely.
  - valicord 3y ago
    Those 99.9% customers would still benefit from not getting "helpful" ads shoved into their face when they make a typo in a domain name.
godelski 3y ago
Sorry, but this really comes off as victim blaming and "domain knowledge"-eliteness. Victim blaming because AT&T shouldn't be doing these things in the first place. Yes, you're right, you should set things up in a better way to prevent this from happening, but you're excusing the bad behavior by placing the blame on the user. The elitism comes from the fact that we live in a specialized world. Not everyone is an expert in everything. If you think you are, I'm here to tell you you're just lying to yourself and thus undermining yourself. There's even plenty of good programmers and people who work on other technical domains that don't have all the knowledge around DNS. This is true for any technology or any specific task. If you're an expert is any domain you're probably quite aware that getting things right ends up being very nuanced. So if you recognize that, then you should recognize that's true outside your main domain. Now if your intention is to help people and educate them then may I offer another way to formulate the comment? If your ISP is making changes that break resolution of your local LAN you can do some configurations to prevent this. You should probably do this anyways. OpenWRT will perform this for you out of the box, but if you can't or don't want to flash your router you can <insert explanation here> or I found this guide [<insert link number>] [<insert link number>] Even if you think people are dumb (__especially__ if you think people are dumb) this message will get more people to fix their problems. You may want to get in the habit of writing like this because we all know that there are things that other people do that affect us. Or chose to do/use things that move the markets and politics and whatever that we then become subjected to. Attacking or blaming them doesn't help us get what we want. Being nice does. At least being nice is the easier way (and you'll probably be less stressed too).
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  Spare me the kindness lecture. The entire rant, most of which is lacking in technical depth and understanding of name resolution despite the overconfidence, could be completely avoided with an entry in /etc/hosts (or its Windows equivalent). Which for a small home network and for someone who doesn't understand or want to fiddle with DNS - is perfectly adequate. I remember a story in HN folklore from someone who worked at a large enterprise many years ago that used an insane massive deployment of hosts files in lieu of DNS.

duped 3y ago

> Any OpenWRT device can do this out of the box with zero additional configuration. Except you must use AT&T's modem when you buy their fiber, and you can't install OpenWRT on it. The rant is lamenting that the all in one modem/router isn't configurable at all, and you need to be using an aftermarket router for your LAN to have any kind of internal DNS.

cptskippy 3y ago
AT&T allows you to configure their Gateway in a passthrough mode that will allow you to use your own router without double NATing yourself.
- duped 3y ago
  Sure, but the point was that you have to buy another gadget. And there's still a box you don't control that has to live in your basement (or wherever) doing some not insignificant lifting. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just configure the box you're paying for already to do the right thing?
lxgr 3y ago
Do you have to use their modem or their router? I've been using my own router across many ISPs over time, and almost all of them offered a "bridge" mode that would just hand a public IP to my own router over DHCP.
- duped 3y ago
  You have to use their modem*. You can bring your own router which is what every nerd should probably be doing anyway, but there's no option for an off the shelf modem. * for fiber

ryandrake 3y ago

I think a surprising number of people probably just use an ISP-provided modem / router combo, allowing the ISP to set the LAN's DNS, decide how to hand out IPs through DHCP, and other configuration options that give them way too much control. A shrinking number of geeks use their own router, and a tiny fraction of that shrinking number even uses their own WAN interface.

wannacboatmovie 3y ago
Many of the posters here seem to be missing the point. 99.9% of customers using ISP supplied equipment don't care about internal DNS resolution, grandma just wants the internet to work and most consumer grade peripherals like printers just use zeroconf anyway, bypassing DNS completely.
- valicord 3y ago
  Those 99.9% customers would still benefit from not getting "helpful" ads shoved into their face when they make a typo in a domain name.

godelski 3y ago

Sorry, but this really comes off as victim blaming and "domain knowledge"-eliteness. Victim blaming because AT&T shouldn't be doing these things in the first place. Yes, you're right, you should set things up in a better way to prevent this from happening, but you're excusing the bad behavior by placing the blame on the user. The elitism comes from the fact that we live in a specialized world. Not everyone is an expert in everything. If you think you are, I'm here to tell you you're just lying to yourself and thus undermining yourself. There's even plenty of good programmers and people who work on other technical domains that don't have all the knowledge around DNS. This is true for any technology or any specific task. If you're an expert is any domain you're probably quite aware that getting things right ends up being very nuanced. So if you recognize that, then you should recognize that's true outside your main domain. Now if your intention is to help people and educate them then may I offer another way to formulate the comment? If your ISP is making changes that break resolution of your local LAN you can do some configurations to prevent this. You should probably do this anyways. OpenWRT will perform this for you out of the box, but if you can't or don't want to flash your router you can <insert explanation here> or I found this guide [<insert link number>] [<insert link number>] Even if you think people are dumb (__especially__ if you think people are dumb) this message will get more people to fix their problems. You may want to get in the habit of writing like this because we all know that there are things that other people do that affect us. Or chose to do/use things that move the markets and politics and whatever that we then become subjected to. Attacking or blaming them doesn't help us get what we want. Being nice does. At least being nice is the easier way (and you'll probably be less stressed too).

wannacboatmovie 3y ago
Spare me the kindness lecture. The entire rant, most of which is lacking in technical depth and understanding of name resolution despite the overconfidence, could be completely avoided with an entry in /etc/hosts (or its Windows equivalent). Which for a small home network and for someone who doesn't understand or want to fiddle with DNS - is perfectly adequate. I remember a story in HN folklore from someone who worked at a large enterprise many years ago that used an insane massive deployment of hosts files in lieu of DNS.