dnsmasq is short for DNS Masquerading. Masquerading is using host names instead of IP addresses which is what DNS is all about. dnsmasq is a DNS/DHCP (and more) server for small home/business networks. Very simple to configure and easy to operate.

#sudo apt-get install dnsmasq

Install with apt-get

Answer yes to authorize the disk space and it will be installed up and running when the installation completes. Yes the folks at Debian are that good!

dnsmasq comes configured for DNS even though it says starting the DNS and DHCP servers when it initializes. DHCP is disabled by default. To configure dnsmasq use a combonation of three files:

• /etc/dnsmasq.conf - to configure attributes for dnsmasq itself
• /etc/hosts - to configure different hosts on the system
• /etc/resolv.conf - to indicate the nameservers on the network and public name servers