What Domain Name to Use for Your Home Network
canopic jug writes:
Daniel Aleksandersen has delved into RFC 8375 from 2018 and its guidance on home LANs. Specifically, it says that the deinitive answer is to use the domain home.arpa special purpose Top-Level Domain (spTLD).
Do not use undelegated domain names like .lan, .home, .homenet, .network, nor should you make up your own domain name. You can use a domain or a subdomain of a domain name you've bought from a domain registrar, however. This last option requires extra configuration of your router to work locally, and an advanced setup involving dynamic-domain names (DynDNS) to work over the internet.
If you use a made-up domain name, then DNS requests may go unfulfilled by your router and it can forward them to the global root servers. This creates needless overhead for the core internet infrastructure, and leaks information about your network (such as device names.) Web browsers and other software, including your router, should know not to do that with .local and .home.arpa domains.
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