router recommendations

[Chenks]

AX88U currently prices at £299 on amazon.
anyone seen it priced better anywhere else?

 

[MarkyPancake]

AX88U currently prices at £299 on amazon.
anyone seen it priced better anywhere else?

I've been keeping an eye on AX88U prices for several weeks now and haven't seen it drop below £300 at retailers.

eBay auctions aren't too far off for pre-owned either, but personally not worth the risk of no warranty at those prices.

 

[tekrich]

I brought mine 6 months ago for £255 on Amazon.

Still a great router with Merlin installed.

 

[MarkyPancake]

I brought mine 6 months ago for £255 on Amazon.

Still a great router with Merlin installed.

That was before COVID-19. During COVID-19, I've noticed that even old models are selling for more than pre-COVID, such as the the Netgear R7800.

 

[Chenks]

ordered today, should be delivered by saturday

 

[L&LD]

@Chenks, what did you order?

 

[Chenks]

AX88u and an ax WiFi card for the laptop

 

[Chenks]

that's it arrived and setup with the basics for now

 

[Chenks]

OK first question, i use Adguard Home as my DNS server for the LAN (hosted locally).
I think i found the correct page to set this LAN > DHCP > DNS and WINS Server Setting > 192.168.50.2. Saved and applied. Forced a DHCP renew on the client.
however the clients lists two DNS servers 192.168.50.2 and 192.168.50.1.

Obviously 192.168.50.1 shouldn't be there. Have I configured this correctly?

 

[L&LD]

@Chenks you're doing it wrong.

https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html#instruction

And make sure you go to the Router instructions too.

You should be configuring the WAN DNS settings, not the LAN.

 

[OzarkEdge]

OK first question, i use Adguard Home as my DNS server for the LAN (hosted locally).
I think i found the correct page to set this LAN > DHCP > DNS and WINS Server Setting > 192.168.50.2. Saved and applied. Forced a DHCP renew on the client.
however the clients lists two DNS servers 192.168.50.2 and 192.168.50.1.

Obviously 192.168.50.1 shouldn't be there. Have I configured this correctly?

On my AC86U, it's:
WAN\Internet Connection\WAN DNS Settings
Connect to DNS Server automatically No
DNS Server1 ?
DNS Server2 ?

OE

 

[Chenks]

see, initially it was the WAN dns settings i changed, applied, renew etc.
but the clients remained reported 196.168.50.1 as the DNS

on the unifi this ws done via the LAN DHCP settings, as i want 192.168.50.2 to be giving out via DHCP as the local DNS server.
i believe setting it on the WAN side would apply it at a router level, not a client level.

example, when i do a "ipconfig /all" on a client, i want the DNS server to say 192.168.50.2, not 192.168.50.1

this is the setup guide for Adguard Home

Router
This setup will automatically cover all the devices connected to your home router and you will not need to configure each of them manually.

1. Open the preferences for your router. Usually, you can access it from your browser via a URL (like http://192.168.0.1/ or http://192.168.1.1/). You may be asked to enter the password. If you don't remember it, you can often reset the password by pressing a button on the router itself. Some routers require a specific application, which in that case should be already installed on your computer/phone.
2. Find the DHCP/DNS settings. Look for the DNS letters next to a field which allows two or three sets of numbers, each broken into four groups of one to three digits.
3. Enter your AdGuard Home server addresses there.

 

[Chenks]

right, so i've got everything configured and running, however that DNS server is still causing a problem.
the DHCP server still appears to be giving out 2 DNS server IP addresses, even though i've told it to only serve 1. the 192.168.50.1 address should not be there. any ideas?

I'm running 3.0.0.4.384_9107 at the moment, not merlin as of yet.

 

[MarkyPancake]

Is 192.168.50.1 the router's gateway IP? Perhaps this being issued to the devices is the default behaviour when a second DHCP DNS Server is not specified, as don't you need a fall back.

For example, I'm using an AC86U and if I leave both DHCP DNS Server fields blank (in your screenshot you only have one DNS Server field), it doesn't matter if I use auto connect DNS or specify my own in the WAN settings, the devices only report my router's gateway IP as their DNS. Too many devices connected for work right now, so I don't want to add DNS to the DHCP settings to see what happens if I only specify one.

I was also going to suggest checking the 'advertise router's IP' setting is set to no to see if that resolves it, but you don't have that setting in your screenshot. On my AC86U it's after the DHCP DNS Server fields and before the WINS Server field.

 

[Chenks]

192.168.50.1 is indeed the IP of the router, but the router doesn't give the option of adding a second DNS IP address.

however, even if that option was there it should be left blank, as if you had a second DNS server then any client will connect to whatever one responds first, and in my situation clients often (but not always) get DNS from the non-adguard DNS server, resulting in ad blocking not happening.

it is expected behaviour that if i set a manual DNS IP then it should override any other automatic DNS IP settings in place.

 

[Chenks]

looks like someone else (2 years ago) enquired about the same problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/7rz9fs

 

[MarkyPancake]

I always thought the first DHCP or WAN DNS was authoritative over the second and the second was only used if the first couldn't be contacted.

I don't know why the firmware for your model doesn't list DNS Server 1 and DNS Server 2 in the DHCP Server page or why it doesn't have the 'Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS' option. If it did, you could try the reddit suggestion of adding the same DNS to both fields and/or setting the advertise router IP option to No. Perhaps your firmware is glitched following an update and requires a factory reset.

 

[dfunked]

I always thought the first DHCP or WAN DNS was authoritative over the second and the second was only used if the first couldn't be contacted.

I don't know why the firmware for your model doesn't list DNS Server 1 and DNS Server 2 in the DHCP Server page or why it doesn't have the 'Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS' option. If it did, you could try the reddit suggestion of adding the same DNS to both fields and/or setting the advertise router IP option to No. Perhaps your firmware is glitched following an update and requires a factory reset.

View attachment 24770

I'm guessing they're looking at the DHCP page rather than the WAN page. I would've just done it via the WAN setting page and left the DNS settings on the DHCP page untouched.
The router IP will show as the DNS server in ipconfig, but whatever you set on the WAN page is really what is being used for DNS lookups behind the scenes.

I preferred to have my Pihole IP as primary DNS and 1.1.1.1 as secondary in WAN settings, as I'd rather still have internet connectivity if Pihole is unreachable for whatever reason. As you say the secondary should only be used in that kind of situation.

 

[Chenks]

I'm guessing they're looking at the DHCP page rather than the WAN page. I would've just done it via the WAN setting page and left the DNS settings on the DHCP page untouched.
The router IP will show as the DNS server in ipconfig, but whatever you set on the WAN page is really what is being used for DNS lookups behind the scenes.

I preferred to have my Pihole IP as primary DNS and 1.1.1.1 as secondary in WAN settings, as I'd rather still have internet connectivity if Pihole is unreachable for whatever reason. As you say the secondary should only be used in that kind of situation.

if you do it via the WAN page then you don't get "per client" reporting, so is essentially useless to see what clients are worse than others.
you do realise though that having an "alternate" DNS address means that it's possible for clients to no use pi-hole, as the other of the DNS servers makes no difference, it's whatever one responds first that gets used.

the correct way, IMO, to do it is to serve the adguard (or pihole) IP via the DHCP server.
this is how i had it set up on my unifi kit, so not sure why the asus router forces its own IP as a DNS server when you specifically tell it to use another one.

 

[Chenks]

I always thought the first DHCP or WAN DNS was authoritative over the second and the second was only used if the first couldn't be contacted.

I don't know why the firmware for your model doesn't list DNS Server 1 and DNS Server 2 in the DHCP Server page or why it doesn't have the 'Advertise router's IP in addition to user-specified DNS' option. If it did, you could try the reddit suggestion of adding the same DNS to both fields and/or setting the advertise router IP option to No. Perhaps your firmware is glitched following an update and requires a factory reset.

View attachment 24770

you're looking at the WAN settings page, not the LAN DHCP settings page.
i'm trying to server the DNS address via DHCP, not have it applied on the WAN connection.