Creating a local host name for DNS databases

[Nabisadah]

Hi all, I contacted Meraki support and they told me that Meraki devices do not support this feature and it would be better to request this feature from Meraki development team. So I hope someone see this message and can add this feature soon. It is very useful for large installations. 

Local Hostname

I want to create a local hostname for one of our switch mgmt GUI on the network, but I can't find a setting for it in the Meraki MX router.

For example:

Normally a switch has a GUI interface and can browse with IP: 192.168.0.20.

But I want to access this GUI interface of the switch not with the IP but with the local hostname: example.local

So when a client on the network tries to enter "example.local", he/she should be able to browse the switch's GUI interface. e.g: The DNS checks its database or A-Entry and finds the hostname "example.local" which is associated to 192.168.0.20.

Best Regards

Nabisadah

[MilesMeraki · Accepted solution]

This can be achieved by using a local DNS server and setting up a local DNS zone for this use case. You could look at implementing BIND (https://www.isc.org/bind/) on a local linux host to resolve the local DNS queries to local IPs.

[Nabisadah]

Hi, today I solved the problem with an external local DNS server.
Everything works as desired. However, I would like the Meraki router to support this feature out of the box so I don't have to set up an external DNS server.

[Khaled_A]

Hi @Nabisadah , we just ran into a similar situation and i was interested to know how did you solve the issue?

[Nabisadah]

Hi @Khaled_A You need to configure a local DNS-Server(Raspberry Pi or any device) on the same network where you need the local hostnames. Then connect the lan port of this DNS server to one of your switches and ping the IP and hostname of the server from your router to see if everything works properly.

Then you can create the desired local DNS names via an A record on your local DNS server and point the local DNS names to your local IP address that you want to reach with hostnames. So that's it!

[cmr]

I wish the Meraki devices configured with local DNS servers would use them to look up the names of the clients.  I really don't understand why they cannot do this?

[PhilipDAth]

If only a small number of people need this it will be easier to add the name to you local hosts file.

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Do you know about these magic DNS entries?

http://my.meraki.com/ 

http://switch.meraki.com/ 

There are a few more.  They return you info about the Meraki device that you are connecting to.

[BlakeRichardson]

Local DNS server is a much better option than setting up each device escpeically if you have a heap to do most DNS services allow you to import records.