{"id":35,"date":"2020-09-26T15:38:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T15:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikestechtips.com\/?p=35"},"modified":"2024-05-05T16:11:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T16:11:00","slug":"dns-encrypting-virtual-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikestechtips.com\/?p=35","title":{"rendered":"DNS Encrypting & Virtual Environments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As someone who is perpetually concerned about a lack of security while surfing the web, I try my best to keep up on the latest zero-days, scams, spoofs and vulnerabilities that I may be susceptible to.  I began to read about DNS spoofing and cache poisoning; an article from CloudFlare<\/a> comes to mind.   CloudFlare is one of the leading providers of website protection services for many of the web\u2019s most well-known websites.  They also have powerful services that help deflect DDOS<\/a> attacks that can bring down web servers by overloading them with fake traffic pings, which lead to the downfall of those web services or servers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the topic at hand though, what is DNS? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DNS stands for Domain Name Service and is critical to the overall functionality of the Internet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every website on the internet is represented by a series of numbers called an IP Address.  For example, Google.com\u2019s IP Address is 172.217.14.228; however, trying to remember Google\u2019s IP address (or any other site\u2019s for that matter) when you want to visit their site would be very cumbersome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter DNS:  Which translates an easily memberable URL into an IP address (i.e. User types: “Google.com” into their browser and DNS knows that this should point the use to 172.217.14.228).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking about how DNS works a little more, one may think, what happens if the DNS server that translates these requests gets compromised?  Or, queries from my browser are being sent to my ISP’s DNS servers in plain text, creating a privacy issue for me as I browse the internet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, readers are probably thinking \u2013 \u201cWho cares? If you\u2019re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.\u201d  This is a great point; however in my opinion, my ISP does not need to know that I went to YouTube.com 7 times yesterday afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to CloudFlare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the list of services outlined above, CloudFlare also provides secured and encrypted DNS services.  But how does one go about accessing those services in lieu of falling back to the unsecured default DNS servers from one\u2019s ISP?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will outline two methods.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method 1 – Firefox Browser:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is the easiest method.  Download Mozilla\u2019s Firefox browser here<\/a>.  Within Firefox, there is a setting to enable DNS over HTTPS<\/a>, which will encrypt your DNS queries via CloudFlare over HTTPS.  Thus, all of your DNS queries in Firefox (i.e. Translating from Google.com to 172.217.14.228) will always be routed through CloudFlare\u2019s DNS Resolver Services and encrypted while referring you to your destination.   To enable this setting, click the “hamburger” menu (three lines stacked on top one another) at the top right of the window and select “Options.”  With \u201cGeneral\u201d selected, scroll to the bottom until you see \u201cNetwork Settings.\u201d  Then, check \u201cEnable DNS-over-HTTPS\u201d and ensure Cloudflare (Default) is selected.  In most recent versions of Google’s Chrome browser, DNS over HTTPS is an option available to users as well… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…But what if you want this level of encryption across your entire home network. That is where Method 2 comes in… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method 2 – Virtual Server Environment:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method 2; however, (though more challenging) is a lot more fun as it involves building your own virtualization server (a\/k\/a Hypervisor<\/a>) using Proxmox, a free and open-source virtualization software platform.  Please note that you can also just install an instance of Ubuntu Server (Linux) directly to \u201cbare-metal\u201d (i.e. to your hard\/solid state drive) in lieu of using a Hypervisor (virtual environment operating system<\/a>) to host each instance of Ubuntu Server.  However, using Proxmox will allow for more flexibility should you choose to add more virtual environments to host more resources on your network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Proxmox, we will then install a virtual instance of Ubuntu Linux (also free and open-source).  As a cheaper alternative, nearly the same steps can be taken on a Raspberry Pi<\/a> using Raspbian Linux.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of what hardware you choose, the end-goal is your own fully operational private DNS forwarding server utilizing CloudFlare\u2019s DNS-over-TLS<\/a> encryption to ensure requests are not sent over the internet in plain-text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 2nd<\/sup>, 2020, I jumped on NewEgg to start this project and ordered the following parts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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