DNSMASQ(8)

NAME
dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server.

SYNOPSIS
dnsmasq [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION
dnsmasq is a lightweight DNS and DHCP server. It is intended to provide coupled DNS and DHCP service to a LAN.

Dnsmasq accepts DNS queries and either answers them from a small, local, cache or forwards them to a real, recursive, DNS server. It loads the contents of /etc/hosts so that local hostnames which do not appear in the global DNS can be resolved and also answers DNS queries for DHCP configured hosts.

The dnsmasq DHCP server supports static address assignments, multiple networks, DHCP-relay and RFC3011 subnet specifiers. It automatically sends a sensible default set of DHCP options, and can be configured to send any desired set of DHCP options. It also supports BOOTP.

Dnsmasq supports IPv6.

OPTIONS
Note that in general missing parameters are allowed and switch off functions, for instance "--pid-file=" disables writing a PID file. On BSD, unless the GNU getopt library is linked, the long form of the options does not work on the command line; it is still recognised in the configuration file.

-h, --no-hosts
    Don't read the hostnames in /etc/hosts.

-H, --addn-hosts=<file>
    Additional hosts file. Read the specified file as well as /etc/hosts. If -h is given, read only the specified file. This option may be repeated for more than one additional hosts file.

-T, --local-ttl=<time>
    When replying with information from /etc/hosts or the DHCP leases file dnsmasq by default sets the time-to-live field to zero, meaning that the requestor should not itself cache the information. This is the correct thing to do in almost all situations. This option allows a time-to-live (in seconds) to be given for these replies. This will reduce the load on the server at the expense of clients using stale data under some circumstances.

-k, --keep-in-foreground
    Do not go into the background at startup but otherwise run as normal. This is intended for use when dnsmasq is run under daemontools or launchd.

-d, --no-daemon
    Debug mode: don't fork to the background, don't write a pid file, don't change user id, generate a complete cache dump on receipt on SIGUSR1, log to stderr as well as syslog, don't fork new processes to handle TCP queries.

-q, --log-queries
    Log the results of DNS queries handled by dnsmasq. Enable a full cache dump on receipt of SIGUSR1.

-8, --log-facility=<facility>
    Set the facility to which dnsmasq will send syslog entries, this defaults to DAEMON, and to LOCAL0 when debug mode is in operation.

-x, --pid-file=<path>
    Specify an alternate path for dnsmasq to record its process-id in. Normally /var/run/dnsmasq.pid.

-u, --user=<username>
    Specify the userid to which dnsmasq will change after startup. Dnsmasq must normally be started as root, but it will drop root privileges after startup by changing id to another user. Normally this user is "nobody" but that can be over-ridden with this switch.

-g, --group=<groupname>
    Specify the group which dnsmasq will run as. The defaults to "dip", if available, to facilitate access to /etc/ppp/resolv.conf which is not normally world readable.

-v, --version
    Print the version number.

-p, --port=<port>
    Listen on <port> instead of the standard DNS port (53). Useful mainly for debugging.

-P, --edns-packet-max=<size>
    Specify the largest EDNS.0 UDP packet which is supported by the DNS forwarder. Defaults to 1280, which is the RFC2671-recommended maximum for ethernet.

-Q, --query-port=<query_port>
    Send outbound DNS queries from, and listen for their replies on, the specific UDP port <query_port> instead of using one chosen at runtime. Useful to simplify your firewall rules; without this, your firewall would have to allow connections from outside DNS servers to a range of UDP ports, or dynamically adapt to the port being used by the current dnsmasq instance.

-i, --interface=<interface name>
    Listen only on the specified interface(s). Dnsmasq automatically adds the loopback (local) interface to the list of interfaces to use when the --interface option is used. If no --interface or --listen-address options are given dnsmasq listens on all available interfaces except any given in --except-interface options. IP alias interfaces (eg "eth1:0") cannot be used with --interface or --except-interface options, use --listen-address instead.

-I, --except-interface=<interface name>
    Do not listen on the specified interface. Note that the order of --listen-address --interface and --except-interface options does not matter and that --except-interface options always override the others.

-2, --no-dhcp-interface=<interface name>
    Do not provide DHCP on the specified interface, but do provide DNS service.

-a, --listen-address=<ipaddr>
    Listen on the given IP address(es). Both --interface and --listen-address options may be given, in which case the set of both interfaces and addresses is used. Note that if no --interface option is given, but --listen-address is, dnsmasq will not automatically listen on the loopback interface. To achieve this, its IP address, 127.0.0.1, must be explicitly given as a --listen-address option.

-z, --bind-interfaces
    On systems which support it, dnsmasq binds the wildcard address, even when it is listening on only some interfaces. It then discards requests that it shouldn't reply to. This has the advantage of working even when interfaces come and go and change address. This option forces dnsmasq to really bind only the interfaces it is listening on. About the only time when this is useful is when running another nameserver (or another instance of dnsmasq) on the same machine. Setting this option also enables multiple instances of dnsmasq which provide DHCP service to run in the same machine.

-y, --localise-queries
    Return answers to DNS queries from /etc/hosts which depend on the interface over which the query was received. If a name in /etc/hosts has more than one address associated with it, and at least one of those addresses is on the same subnet as the interface to which the query was sent, then return only the address(es) on that subnet. This allows for a server to have multiple addresses in /etc/hosts corresponding to each of its interfaces, and hosts will get the correct address based on which network they are attached to. Currently this facility is limited to IPv4.

-b, --bogus-priv
    Bogus private reverse lookups. All reverse lookups for private IP ranges (ie 192.168.x.x, etc) which are not found in /etc/hosts or the DHCP leases file are answered with "no such domain" rather than being forwarded upstream.

-V, --alias=<old-ip>,<new-ip>[,<mask>]
    Modify IPv4 addresses returned from upstream nameservers; old-ip is replaced by new-ip. If the optional mask is given then any address which matches the masked old-ip will be re-written. So, for instance --alias=1.2.3.0,6.7.8.0,255.255.255.0 will map 1.2.3.56 to 6.7.8.56 and 1.2.3.67 to 6.7.8.67. This is what Cisco PIX routers call "DNS doctoring".

-B, --bogus-nxdomain=<ipaddr>
    Transform replies which contain the IP address given into "No such domain" replies. This is intended to counteract a devious move made by Verisign in September 2003 when they started returning the address of an advertising web page in response to queries for unregistered names, instead of the correct NXDOMAIN response. This option tells dnsmasq to fake the correct response when it sees this behaviour. As at Sept 2003 the IP address being returned by Verisign is 64.94.110.11

-f, --filterwin2k
    Later versions of windows make periodic DNS requests which don't get sensible answers from the public DNS and can cause problems by triggering dial-on-demand links. This flag turns on an option to filter such requests. The requests blocked are for records of types SOA and SRV, and type ANY where the requested name has underscores, to catch LDAP requests.

-r, --resolv-file=<file>
    Read the IP addresses of the upstream nameservers from <file>, instead of /etc/resolv.conf. For the format of this file see resolv.conf(5) the only lines relevant to dnsmasq are nameserver ones. Dnsmasq can be told to poll more than one resolv.conf file, the first file name specified overrides the default, subsequent ones add to the list. This is only allowed when polling; the file with the currently latest modification time is the one used.

-R, --no-resolv
    Don't read /etc/resolv.conf. Get upstream servers only from the command line or the dnsmasq configuration file.

-1, --enable-dbus
    Allow dnsmasq configuration to be updated via DBus method calls. The configuration which can be changed is upstream DNS servers (and corresponding domains) and cache clear. Requires that dnsmasq has been built with DBus support.

-o, --strict-order
    By default, dnsmasq will send queries to any of the upstream servers it knows about and tries to favour servers to are known to be up. Setting this flag forces dnsmasq to try each query with each server strictly in the order they appear in /etc/resolv.conf

-n, --no-poll
    Don't poll /etc/resolv.conf for changes.

-D, --domain-needed
    Tells dnsmasq to never forward queries for plain names, without dots or domain parts, to upstream nameservers. If the name is not known from /etc/hosts or DHCP then a "not found" answer is returned.

-S, --server=[/[<domain>]/[domain/]][<ipaddr>[#<port>][@<source>[#<port>]]]
    Specify IP address of upstream severs directly. Setting this flag does not suppress reading of /etc/resolv.conf, use -R to do that. If one or more optional domains are given, that server is used only for those domains and they are queried only using the specified server. This is intended for private nameservers: if you have a nameserver on your network which deals with names of the form xxx.internal.thekelleys.org.uk at 192.168.1.1 then giving the flag -S /internal.thekelleys.org.uk/192.168.1.1 will send all queries for internal machines to that nameserver, everything else will go to the servers in /etc/resolv.conf. An empty domain specification, // has the special meaning of "unqualified names only" ie names without any dots in them. A non-standard port may be specified as part of the IP address using a # character. More than one -S flag is allowed, with repeated domain or ipaddr parts as required. Also permitted is a -S flag which gives a domain but no IP address; this tells dnsmasq that a domain is local and it may answer queries from /etc/hosts or DHCP but should never forward queries on that domain to any upstream servers. local is a synonym for server to make configuration files clearer in this case. The optional second IP address after the @ character tells dnsmasq how to set the source address of the queries to this nameserver. It should be an address belonging to the machine on which dnsmasq is running otherwise this server line will be logged and then ignored. The query-port flag is ignored for any servers which have a source address specified but the port may be specified directly as part of the source address.

-A, --address=/<domain>/[domain/]<ipaddr>
    Specify an IP address to return for any host in the given domains. Queries in the domains are never forwarded and always replied to with the specified IP address which may be IPv4 or IPv6. To give both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for a domain, use repeated -A flags. Note that /etc/hosts and DHCP leases override this for individual names. A common use of this is to redirect the entire doubleclick.net domain to some friendly local web server to avoid banner ads. The domain specification works in the same was as for --server, with the additional facility that /#/ matches any domain. Thus --address=/#/1.2.3.4 will always return 1.2.3.4 for any query not answered from /etc/hosts or DHCP and not sent to an upstream nameserver by a more specific --server directive.

-m, --mx-host=<mx name>[[,<hostname>],<preference>]
    Return an MX record named <mx name> pointing to the given hostname (if given), or the host specified in the --mx-target switch or, if that switch is not given, the host on which dnsmasq is running. The default is useful for directing mail from systems on a LAN to a central server. The preference value is optional, and defaults to 1 if not given. More than one MX record may be given for a host.

-t, --mx-target=<hostname>
    Specify the default target for the MX record returned by dnsmasq. See --mx-host. If --mx-target is given, but not --mx-host, then dnsmasq returns a MX record containing the MX target for MX queries on the hostname of the machine on which dnsmasq is running.

-e, --selfmx
    Return an MX record pointing to itself for each local machine. Local machines are those in /etc/hosts or with DHCP leases.

-L, --localmx
    Return an MX record pointing to the host given by mx-target (or the machine on which dnsmasq is running) for each local machine. Local machines are those in /etc/hosts or with DHCP leases.

-W, --srv-host=<_service>.<_prot>.[<domain>],[<target>[,<port>[,<priority>[,<weight>]]]]
    Return a SRV DNS record. See RFC2782 for details. If not supplied, the domain defaults to that given by --domain. The default for the target domain is empty, and the default for port is one and the defaults for weight and priority are zero. Be careful if transposing data from BIND zone files: the port, weight and priority numbers are in a different order. More than one SRV record for a given service/domain is allowed, all that match are returned.

-Y, --txt-record=<name>[[,<text>],<text>]
    Return a TXT DNS record. The value of TXT record is a set of strings, so any number may be included, split by commas.

-c, --cache-size=<cachesize>
    Set the size of dnsmasq's cache. The default is 150 names. Setting the cache size to zero disables caching.

-N, --no-negcache
    Disable negative caching. Negative caching allows dnsmasq to remember "no such domain" answers from upstream nameservers and answer identical queries without forwarding them again. This flag disables negative caching.

-0, --dns-forward-max
    Set the maximum number of concurrent DNS queries. Unanswered queries time out after 20 seconds. If you sometimes see the log message "forwarding table overflow: check for server loops." then it is worth experimenting with this setting. The default value is 150.

-F, --dhcp-range=[[net:]network-id,]<start-addr>,<end-addr>[[,<netmask>],<broadcast>][,<default lease time>]
    Enable the DHCP server. Addresses will be given out from the range <start-addr> to <end-addr> and from statically defined addresses given in dhcp-host options. If the lease time is given, then leases will be given for that length of time. The lease time is in seconds, or minutes (eg 45m) or hours (eg 1h) or the literal "infinite". This option may be repeated, with different addresses, to enable DHCP service to more than one network. For directly connected networks (ie, networks on which the machine running dnsmasq has an interface) the netmask is optional. It is, however, required for networks which receive DHCP service via a relay agent. The broadcast address is always optional. On some broken systems, dnsmasq can listen on only one interface when using DHCP, and the name of that interface must be given using the interface option. This limitation currently affects OpenBSD. It is always allowed to have more than one dhcp-range in a single subnet. The optional network-id is a alphanumeric label which marks this network so that dhcp options may be specified on a per-network basis. When it is prefixed with 'net:' then its meaning changes from setting a tag to matching it. Only one tag may be set, but more than one tag may be matched. The end address may be replaced by the keyword static which tells dnsmasq to enable DHCP for the network specified, but not to dynamically allocate IP addresses. Only hosts which have static addresses given via dhcp-host or from /etc/ethers will be served.

-G, --dhcp-host=[[<hwaddr>]|[id:[<client_id>][*]]][net:<netid>][,<ipaddr>][,<hostname>][,<lease_time>][,ignore]
    Specify per host parameters for the DHCP server. This allows a machine with a particular hardware address to be always allocated the same hostname, IP address and lease time. A hostname specified like this overrides any supplied by the DHCP client on the machine. It is also allowable to ommit the hardware address and include the hostname, in which case the IP address and lease times will apply to any machine claiming that name. For example --dhcp-host=00:20:e0:3b:13:af,wap,infinite tells dnsmasq to give the machine with hardware address 00:20:e0:3b:13:af the name wap, and an infinite DHCP lease. --dhcp-host=lap,192.168.0.199 tells dnsmasq to always allocate the machine lap the IP address 192.168.0.199. Addresses allocated like this are not constrained to be in the range given by the --dhcp-range option, but they must be on the network being served by the DHCP server. It is allowed to use client identifiers rather than hardware addresses to identify hosts by prefixing with 'id:'. Thus: --dhcp-host=id:01:02:03:04,..... refers to the host with client identifier 01:02:03:04. It is also allowed to specify the client ID as text, like this: --dhcp-host=id:clientidastext,..... The special option id:* means "ignore any client-id and use MAC addresses only." This is useful when a client presents a client-id sometimes but not others. If a name appears in /etc/hosts, the associated address can be allocated to a DHCP lease, but only if a --dhcp-host option specifying the name also exists. The special keyword "ignore" tells dnsmasq to never offer a DHCP lease to a machine. The machine can be specified by hardware address, client ID or hostname, for instance --dhcp-host=00:20:e0:3b:13:af,ignore This is useful when there is another DHCP server on the network which should be used by some machines. The net:<network-id> sets the network-id tag whenever this dhcp-host directive is in use. This can be used to selectively send DHCP options just for this host. Ethernet addresses (but not client-ids) may have wildcard bytes, so for example --dhcp-host=00:20:e0:3b:13:*,ignore will cause dnsmasq to ignore a range of hardware addresses. Note that the "*" will need to be escaped or quoted on a command line, but not in the configuration file. Hardware addresses normally match any network (ARP) type, but it is possible to restrict them to a single ARP type by preceding them with the ARP-type (in HEX) and "-". so --dhcp-host=06-00:20:e0:3b:13:af,1.2.3.4 will only match a Token-Ring hardware address, since the ARP-address type for token ring is 6.

-Z, --read-ethers
    Read /etc/ethers for information about hosts for the DHCP server. The format of /etc/ethers is a hardware address, followed by either a hostname or dotted-quad IP address. When read by dnsmasq these lines have exactly the same effect as --dhcp-host options containing the same information.

-O, --dhcp-option=[<network-id>,[<network-id>,]][vendor:<vendor-class>]<opt>,[<value>[,<value>]]
    Specify different or extra options to DHCP clients. By default, dnsmasq sends some standard options to DHCP clients, the netmask and broadcast address are set to the same as the host running dnsmasq, and the DNS server and default route are set to the address of the machine running dnsmasq. If the domain name option has been set, that is sent. This option allows these defaults to be overridden, or other options specified. The <opt> is the number of the option, as specified in RFC2132. For example, to set the default route option to 192.168.4.4, do --dhcp-option=3,192.168.4.4 and to set the time-server address to 192.168.0.4, do --dhcp-option=42,192.168.0.4 The special address 0.0.0.0 is taken to mean "the address of the machine running dnsmasq". Data types allowed are comma separated dotted-quad IP addresses, a decimal number, colon-separated hex digits and a text string. If the optional network-ids are given then this option is only sent when all the network-ids are matched. Special processing is done on a text argument for option 119, to conform with RFC 3397, and dotted-quad IP addresses which are followed by a slash and then a netmask size are encoded as described in RFC 3442. Be careful: no checking is done that the correct type of data for the option number is sent, it is quite possible to persuade dnsmasq to generate illegal DHCP packets with injudicious use of this flag. When the value is a decimal number, dnsmasq must determine how large the data item is. It does this by examining the option number and/or the value, but can be overridden by appending a single letter flag as follows: b = one byte, s = two bytes, i = four bytes. This is mainly useful with encapsulated vendor class options (see below) where dnsmasq cannot determine data size from the option number. Option data which consists solely of periods and digits will be interpreted by dnsmasq as an IP address, and inserted into an option as such. To force a literal string, use quotes. For instance when using option 66 to send a literal IP address as TFTP server name, it is necessary to do --dhcp-option=66,"1.2.3.4" Encapsulated Vendor-class options may also be specified using --dhcp-option: for instance --dhcp-option=vendor:PXEClient,1,0.0.0.0 sends the vendor class "PXEClient" and the encapsulated vendor class-specific option "mftp-address=0.0.0.0" Only one vendor class is allowed for any host, but multiple options are allowed, provided they all have the same vendor class. The address 0.0.0.0 is not treated specially in encapsulated vendor class options.

-U, --dhcp-vendorclass=<network-id>,<vendor-class>
    Map from a vendor-class string to a network id. Most DHCP clients provide a "vendor class" which represents, in some sense, the type of host. This option maps vendor classes to network ids, so that DHCP options may be selectively delivered to different classes of hosts. For example dhcp-vendorclass=printers,Hewlett-Packard JetDirect will allow options to be set only for HP printers like so: --dhcp-option=printers,3,192.168.4.4 The vendor-class string is substring matched against the vendor-class supplied by the client, to allow fuzzy matching.

-j, --dhcp-userclass=<network-id>,<user-class>
    Map from a user-class string to a network id (with substring matching, like vendor classes). Most DHCP clients provide a "user class" which is configurable. This option maps user classes to network ids, so that DHCP options may be selectively delivered to different classes of hosts. It is possible, for instance to use this to set a different printer server for hosts in the class "accounts" than for hosts in the class "engineering".

-4, --dhcp-mac=<network-id>,<MAC address>
    Map from a MAC address to a network-id. The MAC address may include wildcards. For example --dhcp-mac=3com,01:34:23:*:*:* will set the tag "3com" for any host whose MAC address matches the pattern.

-J, --dhcp-ignore=<network-id>[,<network-id>]
    When all the given network-ids match the set of network-ids derived from the net, host, vendor and user classes, ignore the host and do not allocate it a DHCP lease.

-M, --dhcp-boot=[net:<network-id>,]<filename>,[<servername>[,<server address>]]
    Set BOOTP options to be returned by the DHCP server. These are needed for machines which network boot, and tell the machine where to collect its initial configuration. If the optional network-id(s) are given, they must match for this configuration to be sent. Note that network-ids are prefixed by "net:" to distinguish them.

-X, --dhcp-lease-max=<number>
    Limits dnsmasq to the specified maximum number of DHCP leases. The default is 150. This limit is to prevent DoS attacks from hosts which create thousands of leases and use lots of memory in the dnsmasq process.

-K, --dhcp-authoritative
    Should be set when dnsmasq is definately the only DHCP server on a network. It changes the behaviour from strict RFC compliance so that DHCP requests on unknown leases from unknown hosts are not ignored. This allows new hosts to get a lease without a tedious timeout under all circumstances. It also allows dnsmasq to rebuild its lease database without each client needing to reaquire a lease, if the database is lost.

-3, --bootp-dynamic
    Enable dynamic allocation of IP addresses to BOOTP clients. Use this with care, since each address allocated to a BOOTP client is leased forever, and therefore becomes permanently unavailable for re-use by other hosts.

-5, --no-ping
    By default, the DHCP server will attempt to ensure that an address in not in use before allocating it to a host. It does this by sending an ICMP echo request (aka "ping") to the address in question. If it gets a reply, then the address must already be in use, and another is tried. This flag disables this check. Use with caution.

-l, --dhcp-leasefile=<path>
    Use the specified file to store DHCP lease information. If this option is given but no dhcp-range option is given then dnsmasq version 1 behaviour is activated. The file given is assumed to be an ISC dhcpd lease file and parsed for leases which are then added to the DNS system if they have a hostname. This functionality may have been excluded from dnsmasq at compile time, in which case an error will occur. In any case note that ISC leasefile integration is a deprecated feature. It should not be used in new installations, and will be removed in a future release.

-6 --dhcp-script=<path>
    Whenever a new DHCP lease is created, or an old one destroyed, the binary specified by this option is run. The arguments to the process are "add", "old" or "del", the MAC address of the host (or "<null>"), the IP address, and the hostname, if known. "add" means a lease has been created, "del" means it has been destroyed, "old" is a notification of an existing lease when dnsmasq starts or a change to MAC address or hostname of an existing lease (also, lease length or expiry and client-id, if leasefile-ro is set). The process is run as any unprivileged user which dnsmasq runs as, so it may be necessary to inhibit dropping of the root user, using the -u directive, if the script needs root privs. The environment is inherited from the invoker of dnsmasq, and if the host provided a client-id, this is stored in the variable DNSMASQ_CLIENT_ID. If dnsmasq was compiled with HAVE_BROKEN_RTC, then the length of the lease (in seconds) is stored in DNSMASQ_LEASE_LENGTH, otherwise the time of lease expiry is stored in DNSMASQ_LEASE_EXPIRES. All file decriptors are closed except stdin, stdout and stderr which are open to /dev/null (except in debug mode). The script is not invoked concurrently: if subsequent lease changes occur, the script is not invoked again until any existing invokation exits. At dnsmasq startup, the script will be invoked for all existing leases as they are read from the lease file. Expired leases will be called with "del" and others with "old". <path> must be an absolute pathname, no PATH search occurs.

-9, --leasefile-ro
    Completely suppress use of the lease database file. The file will not be created, read, or written. Change the way the lease-change script (if one is provided) is called, so that the lease database may be maintained in external storage by the script. In addition to the invokations given in --dhcp-script the lease-change script is called once, at dnsmasq startup, with the single argument "init". When called like this the script should write the saved state of the lease database, in dnsmasq leasefile format, to stdout and exit with zero exit code. Setting this option also forces the leasechange script to be called on changes to the client-id and lease length and expiry time.

-s, --domain=<domain>
    Specifies the domain for the DHCP server. This has two effects; firstly it causes the DHCP server to return the domain to any hosts which request it, and secondly it sets the domain which it is legal for DHCP-configured hosts to claim. The intention is to constrain hostnames so that an untrusted host on the LAN cannot advertise it's name via dhcp as e.g. "microsoft.com" and capture traffic not meant for it. If no domain suffix is specified, then any DHCP hostname with a domain part (ie with a period) will be disallowed and logged. If suffix is specified, then hostnames with a domain part are allowed, provided the domain part matches the suffix. In addition, when a suffix is set then hostnames without a domain part have the suffix added as an optional domain part. Eg on my network I can set --domain=thekelleys.org.uk and have a machine whose DHCP hostname is "laptop". The IP address for that machine is available from dnsmasq both as "laptop" and "laptop.thekelleys.org.uk". If the domain is given as "#" then the domain is read from the first "search" directive in /etc/resolv.conf (or equivalent).

-E, --expand-hosts
    Add the domain to simple names (without a period) in /etc/hosts in the same way as for DHCP-derived names.

-C, --conf-file=<file>
    Specify a different configuration file. The conf-file option is also allowed in configuration files, to include multiple configuration files.

-7, --conf-dir=<directory>
    Read all the files in the given directory as configuration files. Files whose names end in ~ or start with . or start and end with # are skipped. This flag may be given on the command line or in a configuration file.

CONFIG FILE
At startup, dnsmasq reads /etc/dnsmasq.conf, if it exists. (On FreeBSD, the file is /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf ) (but see the -C and -7 options.) The format of this file consists of one option per line, exactly as the long options detailed in the OPTIONS section but without the leading "--". Lines starting with # are comments and ignored. For options which may only be specified once, the configuration file overrides the command line. Quoting is allowed in a config file: between " quotes the special meanings of ,:. and # are removed and the following escapes are allowed: \\ \" \t \a \b \r and \n. The later corresponding to tab, bell, backspace, return and newline.

NOTES
When it receives a SIGHUP, dnsmasq clears its cache and then re-loads /etc/hosts. If --no-poll is set SIGHUP also re-reads /etc/resolv.conf. SIGHUP does NOT re-read the configuration file.

When it receives a SIGUSR1, dnsmasq writes cache statistics to the system log. It writes the cache size, the number of names which have had to removed from the cache before they expired in order to make room for new names and the total number of names that have been inserted into the cache. In --no-daemon mode or when full logging is enabled (-q), a complete dump of the contents of the cache is made.

Dnsmasq is a DNS query forwarder: it it not capable of recursively answering arbitrary queries starting from the root servers but forwards such queries to a fully recursive upstream DNS server which is typically provided by an ISP. By default, dnsmasq reads /etc/resolv.conf to discover the IP addresses of the upstream nameservers it should use, since the information is typically stored there. Unless --no-poll is used, dnsmasq checks the modification time of /etc/resolv.conf (or equivalent if --resolv-file is used) and re-reads it if it changes. This allows the DNS servers to be set dynamically by PPP or DHCP since both protocols provide the information. Absence of /etc/resolv.conf is not an error since it may not have been created before a PPP connection exists. Dnsmasq simply keeps checking in case /etc/resolv.conf is created at any time. Dnsmasq can be told to parse more than one resolv.conf file. This is useful on a laptop, where both PPP and DHCP may be used: dnsmasq can be set to poll both /etc/ppp/resolv.conf and /etc/dhcpc/resolv.conf and will use the contents of whichever changed last, giving automatic switching between DNS servers.

Upstream servers may also be specified on the command line or in the configuration file. These server specifications optionally take a domain name which tells dnsmasq to use that server only to find names in that particular domain.

In order to configure dnsmasq to act as cache for the host on which it is running, put "nameserver 127.0.0.1" in /etc/resolv.conf to force local processes to send queries to dnsmasq. Then either specify the upstream servers directly to dnsmasq using --server options or put their addresses real in another file, say /etc/resolv.dnsmasq and run dnsmasq with the -r /etc/resolv.dnsmasq option. This second technique allows for dynamic update of the server addresses by PPP or DHCP.

Addresses in /etc/hosts will "shadow" different addresses for the same names in the upstream DNS, so "mycompany.com 1.2.3.4" in /etc/hosts will ensure that queries for "mycompany.com" always return 1.2.3.4 even if queries in the upstream DNS would otherwise return a different address. There is one exception to this: if the upstream DNS contains a CNAME which points to a shadowed name, then looking up the CNAME through dnsmasq will result in the unshadowed address associated with the target of the CNAME. To work around this, add the CNAME to /etc/hosts so that the CNAME is shadowed too.

The network-id system works as follows: For each DHCP request, dnsmasq collects a set of valid network-id tags, one from the dhcp-range used to allocate the address, one from any matching dhcp-host and possibly many from matching vendor classes and user classes sent by the DHCP client. Any dhcp-option which has network-id tags will be used in preference to an untagged dhcp-option, provided that _all_ the tags match somewhere in the set collected as described above. The prefix '#' on a tag means 'not' so --dhcp=option=#purple,3,1.2.3.4 sends the option when the network-id tag purple is not in the set of valid tags.

If the network-id in a dhcp-range is prefixed with 'net:' then its meaning changes from setting a tag to matching it. Thus if there is more than dhcp-range on a subnet, and one is tagged with a network-id which is set (for instance from a vendorclass option) then hosts which set the netid tag will be allocated addresses in the tagged range.

The DHCP server in dnsmasq will function as a BOOTP server also, provided that the MAC address and IP address for clients are given, either using dhcp-host configurations or in /etc/ethers , and a dhcp-range configuration option is present to activate the DHCP server on a particular network. (Setting --bootp-dynamic removes the need for static address mappings.) The filename parameter in a BOOTP request is matched against netids in dhcp-option configurations, allowing some control over the options returned to different classes of hosts.

FILES
/etc/dnsmasq.conf /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/resolv.conf /etc/hosts /etc/ethers /var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases /var/db/dnsmasq.leases /var/run/dnsmasq.pid

SEE ALSO
hosts(5), resolver(5)

AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Simon Kelley <simon@thekelleys.org.uk>.