On The Bench: DNSMasq as a DNS Forwarder and DHCP Server

I have been pondering DNS resolution on small networks to solve problems that I am having with resolving name requests.  I wanted something simple, lightweight, tested, opensource.  I have dd-wrt and it uses DNSMasq and I find that will service my DHCPd needs, give me a dynamic naming interface, is well aware of the Windows and Samba naming resolution issues; however, I want my primary server to function in this capacity so I have setup DNSMasq and am testing it.

I will be rolling this solution to my school network where I expect that it will solve a great number of the naming request issues that I experience inside my lab.  Sweet to begin getting experience on this commonly deployed solution.  Even better to work with something that works with my favorite router software.

Well I am using it already and it does solve my number one problem, that of having a FQDN resolve to the internal address of a machine and not the external address.  This feature alone will be a tremendous increase in speed for my students using my Moodle and Student Web servers which are dual-homed.

Grsync or Read The Man Pages = Ouch!

Grsync is a GUI front end to rsync for your Gnome desktop. You can install Grsync by issuing the following command in Terminal:

sudo apt-get install grsync

Once installed, you will find Grsync listed under Applications > System tools.

If you are like me, this makes setting up rsync commands a lot easier.  Now if I can just get a visual tool to show me wildcarding on-the-fly, I will have it made with my date commands.