[Dnsmasq-discuss] Feature Request(s)

[Simon Kelley]

On 09/03/12 19:05, Rob Zwissler wrote:
> Hi Simon - I'm a big fan of DNSMasq, it's great software, thanks all for
> your hard work.  I had three requests/questions I just wanted to throw out
> there that would come in handy for simplifying configuration in what I
> think would be an intuitive way.  For the most part, this is related to
> consolidating DNSMasq implementations into a single config file and
> extending cmd line syntax to reduce reliance on external files.  I really
> like the self contained simple nature of DNSMasq and I won't be happy until
> it's as powerful and cryptic as Perl ;)
> 
> 1) address=/domain/ip works great as described, but *.domain and *.*.domain
> (etc...) also resolv based on this syntax.  Syntax like address=/.domain/ip
> that would prevent *.domain from resolving, or address=/..domain/ip would
> prevent *.*.domain but allow *.domain, something in that vain, would come
> in handy.  That way, single A records could be overridden with
> address=/.host/ip so I could keep everything in a single dnsmasq.conf file
> without maintaining a separate addn-hosts file.  Seems like this could
> extend functionality in a very intuitive, backwards-compatible way without
> adding much messiness to config or documentation.

That's a bit of a minefield: address=/.domain/ and address=/domain/ are
equivalent, the former being accepted for backwards-compatibility
reasons. There exists a patch which allows full regexps, which takes the
line of reasoning to the limit. It's never been included because I thing
trying to encode policy on names is wrong, it's too easy end up with the
wrong results if you make statement about anything other than a domain.
> 
> 2) Any reason why an /etc/hosts syntax line can't be put in a dnsmasq.conf
> file?  As far as I can tell it wouldn't break the dnsmasq syntax, and it
> would allow for consolidating files in a very intuitive, minimalist way.
> 

/etc/hosts syntax would be difficult to translate into equivalent
command line options, for consistency, something like

--a-record = <name>,<address>
--aaaa-record = <name>, <address>

and

--host-record = <name>, <address>

which does a both forward and backwards would be possible, I've
considered this before, but most people seem to like to split off such
data into a separate /etc/hosts or another hosts-like file.

> 3) If #1 & #2 aren't feasible, how about something like a=host,ip that
> would allow for an A/PTR pair in more traditional dnsmasq.conf style
> syntax, to reduce the need for an addn-hosts file.

See above.
> 
> 4) How come cname= only works for local hosts?  Would that be difficult to
> implement so you could create CNAMEs for A records hosted on upstream
> servers?
> 
It's a real architectural limitation: the data in a reply has to come
from only local information, or only upstream information, mixing the
two isn't possible. Stub resolvers require both bits of information in
one reply.

Cheers,

Simon.