Why Your EdgeRouter Deserves Proper Name Resolution

If you’ve ever stared at your equipment logs trying to figure out which mystery IP address belongs to which device, you already know the pain. Enabling name resolution turns that mess of numbers into actual, human-readable names. Suddenly, instead of “192.168.1.37 did something suspicious,” you see “printer-that-shouldn’t-be-talking-at-3am.” It’s an instant quality-of-life upgrade that makes troubleshooting faster and a lot less rage-inducing.

I did some homework on the Ubiquiti Edgerouters that i manage and found something cool. That’s where **dnsmasq** really earns its keep. It acts as a lightweight DNS and DHCP helper that automatically ties IP addresses to hostnames. Devices grab an address, dnsmasq remembers the name, and your router logs suddenly make sense. No more keeping a separate spreadsheet titled “IPs I Hope I Remember.” It’s like giving your EdgeRouter a cheat sheet for your own network. It also helps resolve names for devices that are not configured in your DNS server like cameras and printers.

Another big win is troubleshooting speed. When name resolution is enabled, firewall logs, traffic stats, and diagnostic tools become way more readable. Instead of mentally translating IPs back to devices, you can immediately see who’s doing what. That means less time decoding numbers and more time actually fixing the problem—or pretending you fixed it and going for coffee.

Best of all, enabling name resolution with dnsmasq is one of those rare networking tasks that delivers big results for very little effort. A small config change makes your network easier to manage, easier to explain, and easier on your sanity. Your EdgeRouter already knows what’s going on; dnsmasq just helps it talk to you in plain English instead of fluent IP-address-ese.

In the video below, I use Wireshark to learn and confirm if the config change actually works.

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