Be careful there
@Sonyrolfy! Do you want Diversion to work when connected to the OpenVPN Client tunnel when using Policy Rules? If, so read on...
“Accept DNS Configuration” set to “Exclusive”
When combined with
Policy Rules based routing, all clients configured to use the VPN will use the DNS servers provided by the VPN tunnel. LAN Clients configured to go through the WAN will use the DNS configured in the WAN Settings Screen.
The disadvantage of setting
“Accept DNS configuration” to
“Exclusive” when combined with Policy Rules is that DNSMASQ will be bypassed since the VPN tunnel will exclusively use the DNS of the VPN Provider.
The popular Diversion ad blocker program, written for the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware, will not work since Diversion requires the features of DNSMASQ. Diversion will work over the VPN tunnel when
“Accept DNS configuration” is set to
“Exclusive” and
Policy Rules are disabled by setting
“Redirect Internet Traffic” to
“All”.
There are two options available if you want the OpenVPN client to use DNSMASQ when using Policy Rules. This is done by setting
“Accept DNS Configuration” to either
“Strict” or
“Disabled”.
“Accept DNS Configuration” set to “Strict”
If you set
Accept DNS Configuration to
“Strict”, you must then specify the DNS server for the VPN tunnel to use by adding the
dhcp-option DNS command in the
Custom Configuration section per the example below.
“Accept DNS Configuration” set to “Disabled”
My preferred recommendation is to set
“Accept DNS Configuration” to
“Disabled” and install
Stubby DNS over TLS. Stubby DNS over TLS will encrypt DNS queries for all devices on the network. Or, with 380.11 Alpha/Beta, use the built in DoT functionality available in the firmware. Yes, a DNS Leak test will say you may be leaking DNS requests. But rest assured your DNS requests are going where you told them to - Cloudflare or another DoT DNS supported server, and not to your ISP.
Accept DNS Configuration Definitions
For reference, the definition of the
Accept DNS Configuration field values are as follows:
- Disabled: DNS servers pushed by VPN provided DNS server are ignored.
- Relaxed: DNS servers pushed by VPN provided DNS server are prepended to the current list of DNS servers, of which any can be used.
- Strict: DNS servers pushed by the VPN provided DNS server are prepended to the current list of DNS servers, which are used in order. Existing DNS servers are only used if VPN provided ones don’t respond.
- Exclusive: Only the pushed VPN provided DNS servers are used.
See my
blog site for more details.