Category: DNS

Unify gateway DHCP domain name for DNS settings

Posted on by admin

Quick notes on how I manually added a domain name to my Unify gateway DHCP server.

$ cat 20170304-unify_GW_DHCP_set_domain
 
$ ssh admin@192.168.1.1
Welcome to EdgeOS

By logging in, accessing, or using the Ubiquiti product, you
acknowledge that you have read and understood the Ubiquiti
License Agreement (available in the Web UI at, by default,
http://192.168.1.1) and agree to be bound by its terms.

admin@192.168.1.1's password: 
Linux myGW 3.10.20-UBNT #1 SMP Tue Nov 1 17:17:25 PDT 2016 mips64
Welcome to EdgeOS
admin@myGW:~$ info

Model:       UniFi-Gateway-3
Version:     4.3.33.4936086
MAC Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
IP Address:  x.x.x.x
Hostname:    myGW
Uptime:      5881438 seconds

Status:      Connected (http://mynetcontroller.mydomain.com:8080/inform)

admin@myGW:~$ configure 
[edit]
[edit]
admin@myGW# show service dhcp-server 
 disabled false
 hostfile-update enable
 shared-network-name LAN_192.168.1.0-24 {
     authoritative enable
     description vlan1
     subnet 192.168.1.0/24 {
         default-router 192.168.1.1
         dns-server 192.168.1.1
         lease 86400
         start 192.168.1.6 {
             stop 192.168.1.50
         }
     }
 }
[edit]
admin@myGW# edit service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN_192.168.1.0-24
[edit service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN_192.168.1.0-24]
admin@myGW# edit subnet 192.168.1.0/24
[edit service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN_192.168.1.0-24 subnet 192.168.1.0/24]
admin@myGW# set domain-name localdomain
[edit service dhcp-server shared-network-name LAN_192.168.1.0-24 subnet 192.168.1.0/24]
admin@myGW# top
[edit]
admin@myGW# commit
[ service dhcp-server ]
Stopping DHCP server daemon...
Starting DHCP server daemon...

Windows Host Lookup Only work with nslookup

Posted on by admin

I have struggled with a couple Windows clients and using a DHCP/DNS lookups. Basically I want to use machines(physicals/VM’s) on my home network by accessing by their names. Since they all register correctly in the DHCP/DNS device I use I should be able to always use their names which reflect last IP address for it. The goal of course is not to run any additional DHCP or DNS services on my home network. Or result to DYnamic DNS services for each client on my home network. I tend to have a lot of VM’s.

In this case I am using a Unify gateway from Ubiquity Networks and it works well. In addition serving DHCP from it does serve me my local DNS for my home network. This works well from Linux but from Windows it does not. In short Windows can find the client name when I use nslookup. But ping(or any other lookup like RDP etc) fails. I tried several things including:
1. Setup Windows client DNS/hostname/IP settings/search domain/registration like it should be.
2. Some googling suggested registry changes and a few other suggestions nothing helpful.
3. Add a domain name to Unify gateway DHCP configuration.

Nothing worked including referencing the client by FQDN. However although not ideal Windows actually does find the client name if you simply add a dot at the end of the short name. For example ping VM1. instead of ping VM1 or ping VM1.localdomain and so forth.

For me this works and I am not going to try and understand what is braindead in name resolution in Windows I can just dda a dot at the end of short names for my use cases.