Create a second version of a wifi signal with different DNS settings

[canadianvice]

My guess is this might sound vaguely malicious, but read on and I'll elaborate:

I'm a Canadian. I have netflix, and a DNS provider that allows me to access American netflix, which has far more content.

However, I don't want to be on that DNS unless I'm using it for netflix, hence my problem. Is there a way I can configure one wireless connection (or add a second) that uses the same SSID (my router only supports one) but with different DNS settings so I can easily switch between the two DNS options depending on what I'm doing?

I was thinking there might be a driver to spoof it or something, but networking is not my forte. Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks.

 

[eibgrad]

I’m assuming you’ve already determined that you can’t manually configure the TCP/IP configuration of the device to change its DNS server, because that would be the simplest solution. I’m aware that many times you’re only given DHCP as an option.

You can always chain one router behind another and have that second router use a different DNS server. Not a problem. Of course, just like a any other guest network, clients of that router must use a different network (e.g., 192.168.2.x rather than 192.168.1.x), but that may not be an issue if all you need is for the device to have internet access and it doesn’t need to be accessible by clients of the primary network.

If you had a dd-wrt compatible router, you could probably configure its own DHCP server to return different DNS servers for different clients. Most stock firmware doesn’t offer that option. Or worst case create wireless guest network.

 

[canadianvice]

I want to avoid having to tweak the settings on a repetitive basis; more of a flick there flick back type thing.

Is daisy chaining routers really the only way? I've read as much but I hoped maybe there was a software solution like a fake virtual adapter or something.

 

[eibgrad]

There often are several ways to solve a problem, but those like myself providing support also have to take into consideration the abilities of the user. It’s not reasonable to expect every user to be able to deal w/ what may be a more effective solution if it proves too complex. I offered a solution that I believe most ppl could handle.

As far as a virtual adapter, I was under the impression your current router doesn’t offer a second SSID option. That’s sometimes referred to as a virtual “SSID” (not adapter). I thought that was perhaps what you meant. And if you don’t have that option on your router, obviously you’re going to need another wireless AP to make this work, hence the second router.

That said, if you want something perhaps better, here’s another option.

If your device has an ethernet port (wired), you can get yourself a wireless ethernet bridge. That bridge must have a “client” (unbridged) option, aka a WISP (wireless ISP) router option. That means it’s still a router, but the WAN is virtualized over the wireless client of the bridge (which is connected to your primary router’s wireless AP). Thankfully you only need to configure it once. Now you can plug the bridge in whenever you need to use your special DNS server, or unplug it and use the existing wireless adapter when you don’t. That’s about as simple as it’s ever going to get imo. BUT, it might prove a bit overwhelming to find the correct device and configure it properly for some ppl.

So pick your poison.

 

[Pooneil]

At one time, I had something similar to what you want by setting up an old laptop computer as a proxy server that could route content to places. With my limited ad hoc skills it was a pain to set up, inflexible and often failed me. It was a good experiment but ultimately more trouble than it was worth to me. If your skill set is better than mine, which would not be all that hard, then routing through a home proxy server could work for you. Personally I'd use a VPN service for location shifting, even if I had to pay for it.

 

[canadianvice]

Alrighty, so I guess there's not a straight-forward way to do it. I guess I could always set up my laptop as something of a proxy (in my understanding it's not so hard to set up a Wireless AP now) with those dns settings.

I tend not to use it much, I was more curious than anything else.

 

[bill001g]

Not sure why the DNS server would make a difference. I assume you want just a select group of ip to resolve to different IP addresses.

If for example netflix.com resolves to one ip on one dns and to a different one on another you can always just find the IP address and then go into the host file and map it yourself. It will always use host file entries before asking any dns server

 

[eibgrad]

Not sure why the DNS server would make a difference. I assume you want just a select group of ip to resolve to different IP addresses.

If for example netflix.com resolves to one ip on one dns and to a different one on another you can always just find the IP address and then go into the host file and map it yourself. It will always use host file entries before asking any dns server

I assume the OP is using a smart DNS for the netflix connection.