Self-Hosted DNS Server

A Synology NAS can be configured to run a DNS server. Even once the server is set up, of course by default nothing will happen, since no one will be configured to ask the NAS for DNS records

  • There are 2 ways we can achieve this: by host, or by the router
    • by host means we configure it on every single client on our network

Host-based method

In Mac Network Preferences you can find a place to add DNS server IP addresses. You might have your ISP's DNS server IP, you may have Cloudflare's (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1), you may have Google's (8.8.8.8 and 8.4.4.8)

You can replace one of these IP addresses with the IP of your NAS.

  • It's important to retain one of the Cloudflare/Google IP addresses, so that if the NAS is down, the whole network isn't down.
  • note: we want to configure our NAS DNS server so that it forwards requests on to the Cloudflare/Google DNS servers if the NAS doesn't have the IP address in its cache (rule: enable forwarders)

Router DNS

When our Mac has its DNS server configured as the router IP address, your router is running a caching DNS server, and setting itself as the DNS server via DHCP.

  • Your router is acting as a DNS forwarder, you ask your router and your router asks a DNS server for you (the DNS server it forwards it to on your behalf can be configured in the Router settings)