What is "dnsmasq"

Dnsmasq is a Domain Name System (DNS) forwarder and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server for small computer networks, created as free software. Dnsmasq has low requirements for system resources, can run on Linux, BSDs, Android and OS X, and is included in most Linux distributions.

Dnsmasq's DHCP server supports static and dynamic DHCP leases, multiple networks and IP address ranges. The DHCP server integrates with the DNS server and allows local machines with DHCP-allocated addresses to appear in the DNS. Dnsmasq caches DNS records, reducing the load on upstream nameservers and improving performance, and can be configured to automatically pick up the addresses of its upstream servers.

Dnsmasq supports modern Internet standards such as IPv6 and DNSSEC, network booting with support for BOOTP, PXE and TFTP and also Lua scripting.

Some Internet service-providers rewrite the NXDOMAIN (domain does not exist) responses from DNS servers, which forces web browsers to a search page whenever a user attempts to browse to a domain that does not exist. Dnsmasq can filter out these "bogus" NXDOMAIN records, preventing this potentially unwanted behavior.