Question on DNS Config in Router

Hey guys -- I read the tutorial on this subject as well as a few others and am left with some questions you might be able to help with; if I set the DNS addresses of say DNS Advantage in my (Cisco) router, should the "Obtain IP address" & "Obtain DNS address" in the TCP/IPv4 Properties of the computer's networking be set to automatic?

Some have suggested the computer needs to point to the router to access the DNS addresses stored there, and so should have the router's IP address set in the "Use following DNS address" section. Just not sure on this point. Thanks a lot for any insight. Cheers, -- S

In general, the computer's network adaptor uses the default gateway to access the routers DNS servers. Thats why when you do an ipconfig /all, the default gateway address shows up for DNS servers instead of the actual DNS servers being used.

If you want to use a different DNS you can type that into the routers control panel under DNS servers, primary and secondary. I use googles DNS servers but there are more to choose from.

1) When you choose to obtain the Ip address automatically, your router's DHCP auto-assigns IP addresses to the various computers on the network. I dont know about you, but this started creating problems for me from the time of Vista. So, I now assign static internal ips to the computers on my home network. That means that if my router's IP address is 192.168.1.1 (default gateway), then I can assign IP addresses of the 192.168.1.x variety to my computers where x can vary upto 254.

2) As for DNS servers, you can use your ISP's or the google ones (primary 208.67.222.222 and alternate 208.67.220.220) or you can use Namebench to find the fastest DNS servers around.

namebench - Project Hosting on Google Code

smak451 said:

Your motto (Chev) gives me the courage to ask then to be totally clear, it is the DNS entries in the router (primary & secondary) that are what handles the request resolving, and I can leave everything on the computer at "Auto detect?"

What you're saying makes sense Bill, I have only I computer so I thought I would make the router's lease time very long to mimic the static internal IP if I'm understanding you. Reading the tutorial now, thanks for that Non, and to all you guys for your help in gaining a little light on the subject. -- S

Yes that is correct, just type in the DNS server addresses that you want to use in you routers control panel settings, there will be place to type them in manually. You don't have to do this but if you want to use your own DNS servers you can just type them in. This isn't the same as using static IP's where you would type in the IP's, gateway,subnet and DNS of each machine.

For DHCP IP assignments leave the computer's settings on auto.