[Dnsmasq-discuss] Return an address if unable to resolve?

[Doug Moeller]

Thanks for the replys.  A couple of notes that might better define my 
problem.

The clients that will be accessing this will be web only and 
unfortunately I don't have the ability to change their configuration.

I have the redirect to port 80 in the system already,  but that doesn't 
really solve my problem because the client will do a DNS lookup first 
and if that fails it won't try to connect to the web server at all.  
What I need is for the DNS lookup to return an address when the DNS 
lookup fails so that I can redirect them to port 80 on the localhost. 

Thanks

-DOug



 Kelley wrote:
> Doug Moeller wrote:
>> Does anyone know if there is a way to have dnsmasq return a 
>> predefined address if it was unable to resolve the name via the DNS 
>> servers defined in /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf ?
>>
>> Basically I want it to return the address of the localhost if it's 
>> unable to resolve the name.   For my application this would be the 
>> case when the box running dnsmasq is unable to get to the internet,   
>> but I'd like to redirect them to a local web page where I can explain 
>> why the Internet link might be down and offer some troubleshooting tips.
>>
>> Any hints or alternative suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Doing this via the DNS is not a good idea, IMHO. Firstly, DNS is used 
> for more than the web: your mailer, NTP client etc etc may start to 
> behave in strange ways if the DNS system lies to them. Secondly 
> there's a chance that some systems will cache DNS results, so that 
> even when you go back on line, they will fail to work.
>
> As an alternative, the proxy suggestion is good, or iptables rule 
> which just redirect connections to port 80.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Simon.
>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> -Doug
>>
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