dnsmasq for simple names

[Tom H]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Patrick O'Callaghan
<pocallaghan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I want to set up a local dnsmasq server to resolve local hostnames on
> my LAN. I'm not (for the moment) concerned with DHCP, just DNS. I'd
> like to do this without defining a local doman, so that host foo just
> resolves to foo's IP address. The dnsmasq.conf file appears to allow
> this because defining a local domain is optional, however it isn't
> working for me:
>
> $ grep foo /etc/hosts
> 192.168.1.73 foo
> $ dig foo
>
> ; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P2-RedHat-9.10.3-7.P2.fc23 <<>> foo
> ;; global options: +cmd
> ;; Got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 37194
> ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
>
> ;; QUESTION SECTION:
> ;foo.                          IN      A
>
> ;; ANSWER SECTION:
> foo.                   30      IN      A       nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn
>
> (That IP corresponds to some random host somewhere, nothing to do with
> me).
>
> No doubt this is something very stupid but a hint would be appreciated.
> Note that I have blocked DNS referrals for unqualified names (option
> domain-needed)

Looking at "man dnsmasq" but having never tried to create such a
setup; so this might be WRONG:

Assuming that your local network is 192.168.1.0 and your local
domainname is "poc".

1) If you run dnsmasq on the clients and the server:

- set a domain in your client and server hostname configs

- run dnsmasq on the clients with "--server=/poc/ip_address_of_server
--rev-server=192.168.1.0/24,ip_address_of_server"

- run dnsmasq on the server with "--auth-zone=poc
--server=/poc/ip_address_of_server
--rev-server=192.168.1.0/24,ip_address_of_server"

- list the systems on your network in "/etc/hosts", for example a
"192.168.1.111 patrick1.poc patrick1" line for "patrick1"

Running "dig patrick1" (or perhaps "dig patrick1.") on "patrick2"
should return "192.168.1.111".

2) If you run dnsmasq on the server:

- set a domain on your clients and server

- set on your clients "/etc/resolv.conf" to point to ip_address_of_server

- run dnsmasq on the server with "--auth-zone=poc
--server=/poc/ip_address_of_server"

- list the systems on your network in "/etc/hosts"