Router-Hosted Internal DNS

For the devices that matter most on a home network, reliable Unicast DNS is worth having—and you can host it on your router without a dedicated DNS server.

Use mDNS for zero-config discovery and Unicast DNS for stable, cross-VLAN addressing, but keep them on separate domains so the same device can be reached as nas.home.arpa (Unicast) and nas.local (mDNS).

Overview

Use .home.arpa (RFC 8375) and define static hosts directly on the router. This matches standard networking practices. The examples below use EdgeOS, but the same idea applies to most routers that let you define static hostnames and run a DNS forwarder.

Prerequisites

• EdgeOS device
• SSH access
• Static IPs or DHCP reservations

1. Add Static Host

configure
set system static-host-mapping host-name nas.home.arpa inet 192.168.1.15
commit
save
exit

2. Enable DNS Forwarding

Required for clients to resolve names:

configure
set service dns forwarding options addn-hosts=/etc/hosts
commit
save
exit

3. Verify

show system static-host-mapping

Troubleshooting

Client resolution fails:

• Ensure client uses router as DNS server
• Check DHCP hands out home.arpa as search domain
• Check DHCP is handing out router IP as DNS

Remove host:

configure
delete system static-host-mapping host-name nas.home.arpa
commit
save
exit

References

• RFC 8375 – home.arpa domain
• RFC 6762 – .local domain
• EdgeOS User Guide