[Dnsmasq-discuss] Android, IOS, IoT devices, some Windows and search paths

[BrianX]

Hi list,
Unfortunately, the world of DHCP and DNS is getting worse instead of 
better.  More and more devices do not accept DHCP option 119 or 15 as a 
method of adding additional DNS search paths and either won't grant 
access to resolv.conf or don't have any sort of resolv.conf at all.

To make things worse, many devices have a very short field to enter the 
FQDN into and domain names are getting longer as many of the shorter 
domain names are taken.  Given this, there are more and more times where 
there is no solution other than entering an IP address, defeating the 
whole concept of DNS.

I know this has been requested before, but given how few devices can 
handle editing resolv.conf or accept a DHCP option for it or sometimes 
don't even have space to enter the FQDN, would it be possible to add a 
feature to make dnsmasq itself search multiple search paths like 
go-dnsmasq does with their --search-domains option? ( 
https://github.com/janeczku/go-dnsmasq )

This would eliminate the problems with devices that are too dumb to take 
DHCP options and don't grant access to any variation of resolv.conf, or 
simply don't implement much of a system resolver.

I'm aware there are options to put static entries in hosts or cnames for 
distant hosts as well, but static entries defeat the concept of a single 
central entry for DNS.

I'm also aware that duplicate hostnames would fail to resolve to the 
same host from everywhere and consider this a feature instead of a 
problem. (my host "media" exists in various places and the local one is 
found by my Android, as it should be.)

This seems to be a popular desire, a few examples of prior requests include:
http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/pipermail/dnsmasq-discuss/2014q2/008444.html
http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/pipermail/dnsmasq-discuss/2008q4/002644.html
http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/pipermail/dnsmasq-discuss/2007q4/001640.html 
(noted that Simon replied that it was impossible 9 years ago, hopefully 
changed by now)

Running: Dnsmasq version 2.76  Copyright (c) 2000-2016 Simon Kelley
Compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt no-RTC no-DBus no-i18n no-IDN DHCP 
DHCPv6 no-Lua TFTP no-conntrack ipset Tomato-helper auth no-DNSSEC 
loop-detect no-inotify

Brian