Hi all,
Looking for guidance on the migration from ISC to dnsmasq, on 25.7.10, in particular with the handling of the .localdomain for MacOS clients.
I followed the steps in the guide at https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/dnsmasq.html#dhcp-service (https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/dnsmasq.html#dhcp-service) to setup the new DHCP service on dnsmasq.
However, after disabling ISC and enabling dnsmasq, my MacOS clients were unable to connect/ping any host with the .localdomain suffix. I could 'nslookup' the host correctly from MacOS, but ping or ssh could not find it. This worked fine previously with ISC.
This is what I get with dnsmasq --
myuser@Mac ~ % ping myserver.localdomain
ping: cannot resolve myserver.localdomain: Unknown host
myuser@Mac ~ % nslookup myserver.localdomain
Server: 192.168.1.1
Address: 192.168.1.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: myserver.localdomain
Address: 192.168.1.130
Is there any easy way to have dnsmasq work the same way as ISC did for these local hosts, to put them on .localdomain, and have MacOS clients be able to find them?
I'd hoped that the section "ISC / KEA DHCP (legacy)" on the dnsmasq "General" page would help here, but I've tried all of those settings without any luck.
I have several services internally pointing to the .localdomain suffix on some hosts, so ideally I want to keep that as the domain.
As far as I know, MacOS handles .localdomain the same way as .local. This is reserved for mDNS and is answered via Multicast, not via a central DNS service.
You should not use any domains starting with local as DNS name in your network. Use home.arpa instead which is reserved for exactly that purpose.
Quote from: bamf on January 11, 2026, 09:34:13 PMYou should not use any domains starting with local as DNS name in your network. Use home.arpa instead which is reserved for exactly that purpose.
We had a nice discussion about that not too long ago in this topic : https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=50301.msg256202#msg256202
Worth the read IMHO :)