Prosumer gigabit router with DHCP and DNS servers?

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alientechnology

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Feb 1, 2017
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I am looking for recommendations for a small office router that supports:

  • ■ At least 4 GB LAN ports and 1 GB WAN port
    ■ DHCP
    ■ DNS (local then passthrough, NOT dynamic DNS)
    ■ Port forwarding
    ■ Web based administration
Reverse proxy would be a bonus, but not required. Wi-Fi not required. I'm looking for something pretty reliable. No Raspberry Pi or Linux solutions. I know I can do that but want to keep it simple. Any router suggestions?

 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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What feature do you need that you feel needs a special router. I can see no feature on your list that even the most inexpensive router can do.

Now if by dns you want more than the proxy function that almost all routers provide that you likely will not find.

If you want a actual dns server you must have a server. Now there are of course "servers" that can act as routers and also have a dns.

Still almost everyone that is running a DNS server has something like a microsoft domain server that can also do this function. There is no need for a actual dns server unless you have the need to resolve local servers and local machines. It is one of those things that if you need dns server function then you already have a server if you do not have a server already then you do not actually need a dns.
 
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alientechnology

Commendable
Feb 1, 2017
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@bill001g, thank you for the response.

The hard-to-find feature that I am looking for is local DNS. A "server" is not required for DNS, any more than it is for DHCP. It is just less common. Of course something must provide that service, but it can be an appliance-like device.

I've used a Peplink Balance that supports local DNS but also supports multiple WAN connections, load balancing and other functions that make it overkill and pretty expensive for my needs.

I would prefer not to buy a MS Server license and set aside hardware just for DNS. I can set up a Linux VM or RPi just for DNS, but would like to avoid yet another machine in the mix and the additional patching and complexity. I think that DD-WRT also supports local DNS, but as far as I can tell, I'd have to flash my own and hope for the best. My servers are 80% Linux and are used to emulate customer machines so I have no real need for a domain server.

Routers tend to be simple, reliable and require very little maintenance. Consumer grade routers are getting pretty advanced so I thought that maybe there is one that supports this relatively common feature that I missed.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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The reason a DHCP server can easily be implemented on a router is it is kept in memory although I suppose you can write static dhcp to flash. The main problem is dns takes a lot more storage space and a router does not have any really. The flash is used to store mostly the firmware and it has a very low write capability before you burn it out unlike a ssd drive.

The reason dd-wrt does it is because it is a linux install which you do not want. It can use external USB drivers. Once you decide you are going to unix install there are a bunch of router images you can load on a standard pc.
 
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alientechnology

Commendable
Feb 1, 2017
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1,510
Not doubting your answer, just trying to understand it better.

It is unlikely that I will have more DNS entries than DHCP entries. Why does it use a lot more space? I thought that it would check my dozen or so DNS records and if not found, pass it on to Google or another official DNS server.

My thinking...
My old router (Netgear X4) has 128MB of flash and 256MB of RAM. Even allocating 256 bytes per record and 256 DNS entries (which both seem very high), it's only 65KB for the table. It's already getting DNS requests and passing them on to an external server (8.8.8.8) so checking the table first seems like an easy task. Compared to QoS, WiFi encryption, supporting USB3 and eSATA shared devices, beam forming, VPN, port forwarding and all of the other stuff it is doing, DNS seems simple. Apparently it isn't though or more would probably have that feature. I seem to be missing something.

It really seems like something the router could very easily do, but maybe few consumers are asking for it so the feature isn't worth adding.

Also - aren't most routers Linux based? I thought that DD-WRT was just a more open implementation.



 
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