ADD option in Alias object

[GreG.P.]

Hi Team,

If not always included in next update of OPNsense, I propose you to add a simple radio button in Alias object creation to get directly the IP address corresponding to an hostname by a dns resolution like nslookup command.

This goal is to complete automatically the ip address field when creating an alias without manual error

PS: There is already possible to create a group object for several Alias object or not yet ? and could you export all created alias to save them for eventually import them on to a new installation of OPNsense (like configuration file) ?

Thank you.
Regards,
GreG

[franco]

Hi Gregory,

Hmm, there is a hosts alias for this purpose so it does update the IP addresses regularly. Isn't this what you're looking for?


Cheers,
Franco

[GreG.P.]

Hi Franco,

Sure I'm looking for an Host alias (object) with two option, one permit to create host alias with static IP address and second option permit to create Host alias with automatic IP address updates.

The second point consist to create a Group that can be contain other several  objects (in the same type of course) or other groups (groups in group).

Regards,
GreG

[franco]

Hi Gregory,

I'm still trying to think of how this could be added as a feature. So it is like a host alias list with a manual update interval?

The current update structure does not really offer flexibility to store both original hostnames and cached IP addresses, which could be invalidated for all sorts of reasons, probably also on reboot. That's ok for completely dynamic host names, but not so good for your use case.


Cheers,
Franco

[GreG.P.]

Hi Franco,

To explain more precisely the function, in the example below, when creating a host object, we can set between "None (static IP) and "Automatic"(=dynamic).

The automatic update function for host object will update automatically the IP address of the object in background process (the default interval is 5 minutes but possible to modify this value with a CLI command)

The Green circle indicate a button that execute manually the update dns resolution for the object creating or when edit an host object. I think this manual button execute a simple script to perform a dns lookup on the object name then paste the result (if found and correct) to the IP address field of the concerning object.

PS: I may search the script or command used with this update function, if you want.
For information the OS of this firewall is based on FreeBDS.

Regards,
GreG

[franco]

Hi Gregory,

Ok, I see it now. Let me think a bit about it. I think it's more of a GUI UX issue than anything else.


Cheers,
Franco