WaFreeNet DNS

Nomenclature

We have chosen a very simple method for naming. In reality anything is acceptable, as long as it ends with .wafreenet . Most AP administrators have chosen to setup DNS in the following manner;

• <user>.<gateway>.<AP>.wafreenet

So if we have the user ANDREW connected through his gateway called DREWNET and he is connected to the AP named EGGNET his DNS would be;

• andrew.drewnet.eggnet.wafreenet

Many admins may choose to shorten these names in order to save typing time;

• andrew.dw.egg.wafreenet

In many cases there will be no need for the gateway name. The user may be directly connected to the AP without his own gateway (single computer), or the clients local network is NAT'ed through to the AP via a gateway, rather than having WaFreeNet IP's on each of his machines.

• drewnet.egg.wafreenet

Server Locations

Each AP administrator should prepare a DNS server. In this way each AP admin is responsible for their own naming, with one master server or more (see below) being responsible for passing the names to the other servers/AP's. The result is an adequate number of DNS servers on the network, but each being responsible for their own domain (decentralising should make name requests quicker for new nodes). Each DNS server should also act as a forwarder for internet name servers, so that users can use both the internet and the WaFreeNet at the same time. Clients should be reminded that the WaFreeNet DNS servers cannot be set as secondary to or primary before an ISP internet DNS server.

WaFreeNet Root DNS Servers

The following root DNS servers can be used for resolving any .wafreenet address. As an added bonus, they are also capable of resolving internet addresses as well.

• 10.60.70.2 - ns1.wafreenet (located at mystic)
• 10.60.152.1 - ns2.wafreenet (located at perthap)

AP Admins should configure their local dns servers to pass wafreenet DNS lookups to one of the above (select the closest as primary, and the other as secondary), and to forward any other DNS lookups (ie internet DNS lookups) to their ISP's DNS server, if applicable. In the event of ISP connection failure, AP admins can configure their internet DNS lookups to fail over to the WaFreeNet root servers above, which should allow continued DNS operation.

If you are using BIND9, here are some tips to achieve this:
in named.conf or any of the "include"d files, your forwarders section should look like this:

forwarders {
                1.2.3.4;
                5.6.7.8;
                8.8.8.8;
                10.60.70.2;
                10.60.152.1;
        };

Where: 1.2.3.4 and 5.6.7.8 are your ISP's dns servers. 8.8.8.8 is a good fallback (google dns).

Wafreenet forward and reverse zones should look like this:

zone "wafreenet" {
        type forward;
        forwarders { 10.60.70.2; 10.60.152.1; };
};
zone "60.10.in-addr.arpa" {
        type forward;
        forwarders { 10.60.70.2; 10.60.152.1; };
};

Swap the order of the servers depending on which one is physically (or logically) closer.

More info

The "wafreenet" root zone and "60.10.in-addr.arpa." reverse (classless, delegated) root zone are both hosted at the above root servers. AP admins will need to ask for these zones to be updated with the details of their DNS server if they want their DNS zones to be reachable from the rest of the WaFreeNet. Please see the Contact Page and log into IRC for details on getting this done.