[Dnsmasq-discuss] history

[john francis lee]

Hi dnsmasqers,

I just set up an instance of ipfire, which incorporates dnsmasq, and I'm
trying to wrap my mind around both. dnsmasq has a lot of command line
options. I notice that there seem to be options -0 through -9, -A
through -Z, -a through -z, and then ... a lot more.

Is there an historical trace here? Did dnsmasq start out with the
numbered options? or the upper or lower case options? and then proceed
from there? I ask because I guess that the earliest implemented options
are the most essential, and I ought start there. The option definitions,
with the FAQ, seem to be the extent of the documentation, and I'm just
trying to 'make a plan' on reading it all in some sort of ordered fashion.

Seems like a great system. Thanks a lot for all the work that's gone
into it.

ipfire starts dnsmasq ...

/usr/sbin/dnsmasq
    -l /var/state/dhcp/dhcpd.leases
    -r /var/ipfire/red/resolv.conf
    --domain=localdomain
    --dnssec
    --dnssec-timestamp /var/ipfire/dns/dnssec-timestamp
   
--trust-anchor=.,19036,8,2,49AAC11D7B6F6446702E54A1607371607A1A41855200FD2CE1CDDE32F24E8FB5
    --cache-size=2500

I'm wondering if it will be ok just to add options to a configuration
file without interfering with the working setup I have. As well, updates
from ipfire may or may not have the same options on the command line, so
I'd like to keep mine separate.

I have three interfaces on my ipfire machine, one goes to the adsl modem
that connects me to my isp and the internet (red), one goes to my
workstations (green), and one goes to a wi-fi access point (blue). The
color codes are ipfire's and are shorthand for the different ip table
rulesets for each interface.

I'd like to set up a ddns service on the internet connection and run a
webserver on the ipfire machine, but be able to access it from the green
and the blue networks via a different names and perhaps with different
access abilities as well.

Dnsmasq seems to make it easy to do this, from what I've read so far.
But I'd like to develop as thorough an understanding as I can before
setting the thing up. Once its set up and people are using it, changing
the setup will be more troublesome than it is now.

Any advice you might have would be appreciated. Thanks very much for
dnsmasq in any case.