How to manage your router – Part II

[Tracey CapenAskWoody MVP]

NETWORKING By Lance Whitney Your router holds the keys to your local network. Here’s how to use some of its advanced settings. In Part I of this two-p
[See the full post at: How to manage your router – Part II]

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SueW, GreatAndPowerfulTech, woody

[jackpetAskWoody Plus]

I have found it particularly useful to reserve the IP addresses of the devices on my home network.  This stops DHCP from changing them.  I then go and create direct shortcuts to these devices.  It’s faster and more foolproof than using the Windows network way to access these devices.

• This reply was modified 1 week ago by  jackpet.

[cmar6AskWoody Plus]

Lance Whitney:

“To change DNS settings in the router, sign in with your administrator credentials and then look for a menu section labeled something akin to “Internet Setup” or “WAN settings” (often in an advanced-settings section). Next, look for a feature called “DNS address” or “DNS type” or something similar. If the address for the DNS server is tied to your ISP or is set to “Dynamic,” enter the address for the DNS service of your choice.”

He does not explain why one would change the default DNS setting in the router. My Netgear router has “Use dynamic DNS Service” unchecked. What does that mean in Whitney’s terms?

[Paul TAskWoody MVP]

Dynamic DNS is a method to allow you to find your router on the internet via DNS. This is only for people who know how to tie their networks down very tight and will never be needed by 99% of people.

The suggestion was to set a non-default DNS, which may be useful if you want to try to limit access to malicious sites, or your ISP has very flakey DNS servers. Again, 99% of consumers routers will use the ISP DNS – I do.

cheers, Paul

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cmar6

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