Option to swap A record with CNAME in dhcp-to-dns

[Hr46ph]

Hello!

Been using your script dhcp-to-dns, It works fine (thanks!) but I run into the issue that it records MAC addresses as A records and when a hostname is provided, it creates an A record. The issue with that is that software that does reverse lookups (example: Pi-Hole) for client IP's will get a MAC address as hostname. Hence, my Pi-Hole client logs all show as MAC addresses.

Would you consider swapping this, or make it swappable via an option?

Obvisouly, if a client requesting an IP from DHCP doesnt provide a hostname, its fine to fallback to registring a MAC address, or not register it at all. This also could be made into an option.

Thanks!

[eworm-de]

What you want is what it used to be. But there are way too many special cases... Devices without hostname, devices with same hostname, devices switching from one network to another, devices with same hostname in different network, ...
Fixing one broke another. It never really worked without problems. So finally we ended with what we have now.

I know about that side effect with reverse lookup, but there's really no (easy) way to get that right without mac address.

Wondering if a combined name (with hostname and mac address concatenated) would help here... Any thoughts?

CC @mgisbers as we have discussed that before already.

[Hr46ph]

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't aware of the background. I just started using this last week when I purchased a Mikrotik router.

My best suggestion is to make it an option. I understand both ways have their pro's and con's, so allowing users to choose which best suits their needs seems like the best choice.

Perhaps it's doable to apply some logic during each run:

• check if a hostname is provided
• check if it exists with another mac address
• use hostname if it is unique
• use mac if it is not unique

But you probably already went down that route before settling on the current script.

In my case I would even prefer not to register with mac addresses at all, since that is useless to me. My use-case is to simply use the fqdn's to access devices via ssh or vnc. I make sure my hostnames are unique and I remember them because they make sense to me. IPv4 addresses are memorable too, if they are fixed but not IPv6, and mac addresses are just as bad.

I totally understand there are people with different use cases. Hence I suggest to make it an option.

It would be grand if you would consider it.

[eworm-de]

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't aware of the background. I just started using this last week when I purchased a Mikrotik router.

My best suggestion is to make it an option. I understand both ways have their pro's and con's, so allowing users to choose which best suits their needs seems like the best choice.

Well, for me it results in maintaining more more, more complexity, and - after all - the cons from both solutions. I would like to have just one, that works in most situations.

In my case I would even prefer not to register with mac addresses at all, since that is useless to me.

... but not for the script.

My use-case is to simply use the fqdn's to access devices via ssh or vnc. I make sure my hostnames are unique and I remember them because they make sense to me.

You can do that. It works just fine with the CNAMEs.

Again, the only thing suffering here is reverse lookup, when you want a name for an ip address.

[Hr46ph]

Alright, its fine if you don't want to do it, it was just a suggestion not knowing you had already been through this ordeal before.

Each to his own, its indeed the reverse lookups that I want for decent logging. MAC addresses are useless to me as A records, and its reverse lookups don't work for appliances like Pi-Hole. I'll see what if I can modify the script myself.

Thanks for your time, appreciate it.