DNS router vs windows

aezakmi · April 25, 2018

I just watched the new video, you know, the one about 1.1.1.1

So my question here is, the default "Setup on PC" instructions are for Windows, so, I think, even if I configure this DNS in Windows, my router will override them, why? because it has a different DNS configured already, and uhm well that's my theory.

If I configure 1.1.1.1 for both the router AND windows it'll work, but if I only configure for Windows it won't, am I right?

kelvinhall05 · April 25, 2018

I configured it for Windows alone, and it seems to be working.

ffs my parents wont tell me router credentials

Mikensan · April 25, 2018

If you tell windows to use 1.1.1.1 - it will either work or wont. It's not going to use your router unless you tell it to. So you'll know instantly if just configuring windows with 1.1.1.1 will work because you will no longer be able to resolve websites.

Your router is just like a computer, if it is configured with 1.1.1.1 then whenever it itself needs to resolve DNS it will use that DNS server, and with DHCP it will attempt to assign that DNS.

The only way to stop local clients from using 1.1.1.1 is if you've configured your firewall to block all external DNS requests. I suppose you could also possibly NAT all internal DNS traffic to another DNS server, but that's never a default behavior and would've been something you or whomever configured your router would've done.

Tiadow · April 25, 2018

Your router will only affect your DNS if windows is set to optain DNS automatically. Data Traffic and DNS requests are completely separate.

In short: your Theory is wrong.

Blake · April 26, 2018

your dns server is an IP address. that means it doesn't need to make a DNS request to resolve the IP address of your DNS server.

if you DNS server doesn't know what the IP resolution of a hostname is, it'll forward the request to whatever you've got configured in the DNS forwarders. If you don't have any DNS forwarders configured, you'll get the DNS timeout.

Configuring the DNS in your router will only make a difference to any hostnames your router needs to resolve, or if it's also your DHCP server, assign it to systems on your network requesting DHCP&DNS data.