@Hank62 Can you react on this request? There are 71 votes and there is no reaction from TP Link :( 

I am just evaluating TP-Link gear (ER605, TL-SG2008P, EAP655-Wall on Omada Software Controller) and came across the issue that I can't resolve local hostnames in my test setup. I was thinking I am missing a configuration option and searching for it brought me to this threat.

ER605 does not have a local DNS server? Really?

How are local hostname supposed to be resolved? External DNS server don't know anything about local hostnames. The only way to resolve local hostnames is to have a local DNS server which registers the static and DHCP allocations. A separate DNS server can't solve this as it doesn't know about the DHCP allocations. 

So TP-Link is telling me that in a local network I can't work with hostnames only with IP addresses?

I consider this also a bug not an enhancement. This is basic functionality for a gateway router. 

  @aschmid One way would be to have your dns and dhcp both handled by a separate device on the network, either a Windows server (fairly common for small offices on a windows domain) or a linux box running dnsmasq.  

Hi All,

I mailed TP-Link support regarding this matter, perhaps if you get a chance - do the same, this needs to be sorted out. The feedback I had from them is below but its not good enough, we need someone from TP-Link to provide some constructive feedback on the forum, otherwise whats the point of this forum if its not being monitored by the Vendor....

RE: [TP-Link Support]-[TKID221224633] TL-R605 Local DNS Server

Good morning,

They are going to try adding that function in future, but this is still with R&D at the moment.

I will forward any further feedback to you.

Regards,

Edward Scarth

  @nmos, yes you could implement your own DHCP server, but what's the value add then of the ER605 router if I have to do basic functions as a separate service?

I do run my own DNS server (unbound) as I have more control but for the local zone resolution this points to the router/gateway of the network. 

TP-Link has all the bits already. A DHCP server is running and a DNS server is also running on the ER605 as it responds to queries on port 53. It just looks like this DNS server is only setup as a forwarding DNS. All they would have to do is register the static and DHCP entries as a local zone on the existing DNS server to solve this issue. 

We are not even talking about things like DNS-over-HTTPS or DNS-over-TLS here which would be great to have but basic local DNS resolution. In my opinion every router should be able to resolve local hostnames in the zone they control.

  @aschmid Agreed, the whole "single pane of glass" concept only makes sense if you can do all the core stuff from the controller.  One of the reasons I started looking into the Omada platform is that I was disappointed in the Unifi routers and didn't really see them moving in a direction that made sense for my customers.  Without this functionality I have to say the same for Omada.