Simon, I have read the man page but I still need assistance. Because dnsmasq cannot reload the cache from a dump, this must be perfect before I stop and restart dnsmasq, else I will again have Email messages backed up for hours (a few deferred 4 days last time!) while the cache rebuilds.
I need MX. In dnsmasq.conf there are 4 lines; which do I set, please? mx-host (What is the meaning of "mx_name[, hostname][, preference#]"? Do I need to set mx-host?) mx-target (mx-target seems inappropriate, if I read the man page correctly.) selfmx (???) localmx (???) Here is the scenario: eth1 EXTERNAL IP FQDN INTERNAL IP eth0 66.209.101.194 yesican.chsoft.biz 192.168.1.1 66.209.101.195 news.chsoft.biz 192.168.1.205 When "news" emails to "yesican", I need for dnsmasq to return 192.168.1.1 to the MX request. (? and the A request if there will be one, and to return 1.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa to the PTR request if there is one of those ?) WBTH (What Bad Thing Happens): The present configuration causes this Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: query[MX] yesican.chsoft.biz from 192.168.1.205 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: forwarded yesican.chsoft.biz to 207.178.128.21 --->>>^^^ This should not be forwarded! ^^^<<<--- Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: query[A] yesican.chsoft.biz from 192.168.1.205 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: /etc/hosts yesican.chsoft.biz is 66.209.101.194 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: query[PTR] 195.101.209.66.in-addr.arpa from 127.0.0.1 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: cached 66.209.101.195 is 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: query[A] 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net from 127.0.0.1 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: forwarded 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net to 207.178.128.21 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: reply 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net is <NXDOMAIN>-IPv4 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: query[A] 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net.chsoft.biz from 127.0.0.1 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: forwarded 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net.chsoft.biz to 207.178.128.21 Aug 24 02:05:05 YesICan dnsmasq[123]: reply 66-209-101-195.skyriver.net.chsoft.biz is <NXDOMAIN>-IPv4 More generally, any MX request from an internal machine should return the internal IP of the specified computer. dnsmasq version 2.22 running on Slackware Linux version 10.0. 1) Your explanations in this mailing list are clear; please add some (more) explanatory text to the man page so it too is clear. An example in the config file would be a huge help as a supplement to the man page. 2) Please supply an external program to reload the cache from a SIGUSR1 dump for those of us who are in serious need of an equivalent to dnscache's SlurpCache feature. If I had this, I could take the time to work out the answer to my question for myself. I realize that the load on my setup exceeds the "light weight" in the description of dnsmasq, but except for this single lack, dnsmasq is ideal. -- gypsy