VR900 - WAN DNS vs LAN DNS - Which to use?

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VR900 - WAN DNS vs LAN DNS - Which to use?

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
VR900 - WAN DNS vs LAN DNS - Which to use?
VR900 - WAN DNS vs LAN DNS - Which to use?
2016-03-26 00:37:12
Model :

Hardware Version : Not Clear

Firmware Version :

ISP :

Ok so this is my second attempt at posting a thread as TP-Link didn't seem to approve the first attempt. It took 24 hours and lots of prompting just to get my first post approved.

Anyhow, back on subject. Due to the very poor Parental and Access Controls on this router I've decided to use OpenDNS for filtering out adult content on my network. Now all of the 'How to' s advice that the DNS Servers should be entered Under Advanced>Lan>DHCP which is what I initially did. And although my network devices appeared to use the OpenDNS Servers, the Status Page in the UI shows the BT Servers.

So I've had a look through the UI and now notice that under Internet>WAN Interface>Edit>Advanced, I can also enter DNS Servers there. So I've also now done this and now the Status page shows the OpenDNS servers.

Does anyone know why we can enter these DNS Servers in two places (WAN and DHCP). I'm not home at the moment but I wonder whether by entering them under 'Internet' it will force all clients to use these Servers. This router is supposed to support DNS Relay but there are no settings for it in the UI. TP-Link Tech Support tell me it's not supported.

Manyy thanks in advance. I'm not even sure if this will get posted.
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Re:VR900 - WAN DNS vs LAN DNS - Which to use?
2016-03-26 06:55:40
I think I've found the answer to my question. I'll post it here in case anyone needs to know this in future.....

This is from the SmallNetBuilder Forums:

"Asuswrt has the router run as a DNS proxy (that's the short version of it). That field on the DHCP page will usually contain your router's IP (that's the default when it's left empty), which means your clients will get your router's IP as the DNS, and then the router performs all DNS lookups using the DNS obtained either from your ISP, or manually entered on the WAN page. Having this means that your router can easily act as a caching server for DNS queries for your whole LAN, which can improve performances.

So if you wanted to use custom DNS servers, you would have to enter them on the WAN page, while leaving the DNS entry on the DHCP page untouched."

So I've changed mine now and put the DNS Servers into the WAN section and deleted them from the DHCP section. Now, as default, and network device will be pointed to the router for DNS resolution which will perform the look up itself using the DNS Servers I've entered in the WAN section. I'll see how I go as it way make browsing from network devices faster or it may make it slower.
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