DNS not working

#1

Hi there,

I was using your DNS (1.1.1.1) back at home, but recently moved to university and it doesn’t seem to be working any more, I’m assuming it’s probably just the university network blocking the use of a different DNS as I even tried using Google’s 8.8.8.8 DNS and that didn’t work either.

Here is the link to the results from the Diagnostic Tool: https://cloudflare-dns.com/help/#eyJpc0NmIjoiTm8iLCJpc0RvdCI6Ik5vIiwiaXNEb2giOiJObyIsInJlc29sdmVySXAtMS4xLjEuMSI6IlllcyIsInJlc29sdmVySXAtMS4wLjAuMSI6IlllcyIsInJlc29sdmVySXAtMjYwNjo0NzAwOjQ3MDA6OjExMTEiOiJObyIsInJlc29sdmVySXAtMjYwNjo0NzAwOjQ3MDA6OjEwMDEiOiJObyIsImRhdGFjZW50ZXJMb2NhdGlvbiI6Ik1BTiIsImlzcE5hbWUiOiJVbml2ZXJzaXR5IG9mIER1cmhhbSIsImlzcEFzbiI6Ijc4NiJ9

Let me know if you need anything else, as I saw there was more to do for troubleshooting, I’d be happy to do any of it.

Thanks.

#2

What if you try to use DNS-over-HTTPS? Firefox has an option in the network settings to enable this, by clicking a checkbox. That way your DNS queries are encapsulated inside standard HTTPS traffic.

It seems from your log that the servers themselves are reachable, perhaps only port 53 is blocked by the university.

#3

Yeah port 53 is closed on my network. Is that the port that 1.1.1.1 will run through? It’s weird though, because I have the 1.1.1.1 Android app on my phone and that works perfectly fine. I tried using DNS over HTTPS on Firefox and it works on there, but I use Chrome as my default browser and Chrome doesn’t offer DNS over HTTPS. Is there another work around at all? I can contact my University IT Support, but from my experience with them they are pretty useless.

#4

DNS, any DNS, works on port 53. Just like HTTP works on 80 and HTTPS on 443. If it were any other port, there would be no agreement, that’s why there are standard ports.

The Android app, IIRC, opens a VPN connection (so not port 53) towards the service, and encapsulates traffic through it.

If you prefer to not use Firefox, you can use another service that supports acting as a local DNS resolver (on 127.0.0.1) and sending all queries over HTTPS, and then point your machine’s DNS configuration to 127.0.0.1 after you do. That is pretty much what Firefox does internally.

#5

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Alright I’ll look into using another service to act as a local DNS resolver. Thank you for your help.