this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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What top-level domain do you use in your local network? (alien.top)
submitted 10 months ago by ElEd0@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I've wanted to install pihole so I can access my machines via DNS, currently I have names for my machines in my /etc/hosts files across some of my machines, but that means that I have to copy the configuration to each machine independently which is not ideal.

I've seen some popular options for top-level domain in local environments are *.box or *.local.

I would like to use something more original and just wanted to know what you guys use to give me some ideas.

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[–] mr_whats_it_to_you@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

It depends.

  • Do you want to have access from outside of your network or do you want to host several services to the public (in the future)? Then I would recommend buying your own public domain. It doesn’t need to be a TLD.
  • Do you only want to use your services privately? Then use home.arpa as explained in the rfc 8375.

I would discourage you from using popular but misleading „local“ domains like .lan, .local, .home etc.

That is because those domains might already be available in public. So when you use .lan for example your dns-queries might be forwarded to the public never resolving your privately hosted services name. It could also „leak“ private network information like on what port you try to access a service and how that services name is.

Also you should highly evade .local which was also my mistake. Some services like MulticastDNS i.e. apple bonjour service rely on this domain. If you would use it unknown problems might be frustrating you.

So if you host everything private, go for .home.arpa.