Probably one of the most difficult part parts of transitioning to using your Amahi HDA with the recommended setup is to get all systems to use your HDA for DNS.
A typical symptom is that either accessing the dashboard as
http://hda
or apps that have a web interface (or both) are not reachable and leads to some a site outside your network, on the internet (like amahi.net)
For best results, we recommend that you fully transition your network to using your Amahi server at least for DNS. <b>NOTE:</b> .{{MessageBox|backgroundcolor = #FBB|image =Warning.png|heading =WARNING|message = Turning off the DHCP in your router is the last step you take after installing Amahi. It should <b>ONLY</b> be done if your HDA is FULLY WORKING, otherwise you may be locked out without Internet in your own network.}}
The easiest and simplest way to do this is to do these things in the following order:
:1. [[Turning_off_DHCP_in_your_router|turn off any other DHCP server]] in your network (typically in your router/gateway) and let Amahi handle DHCP so that DNS falls into place automatically.
:2. [[RenewIP|renew Client IP Address]] or reboot '''all''' your client devices :3. turn You can do this by turning off the network (WiFi) and turn it back on after a few seconds on your clients(or unplugging it or turning off WiFi for a few seconds, then), so they get a DHCP lease from your HDA and hence , which includes DNS .
:43. sometimes the clients machine also cache DNS in their browsers. To avoid this, you can hard-refresh the browser, or simply rebootthe machine.
If you have any fixed IP devices in your network from your router settings, these may not pick up a DHCP lease. You may set them up in your HDA under [http://hda/tab/network/hosts Setup > Networking > Fixed IPs].
== An Alternative ==
Alternatively, if you cannot or do not want to turn off your router DHCP, you can still use the DNS server in your HDA.Here are the [http://www.amahi.org/faq/is-dhcp-server-required tradeoffs of not using the fully recommended configuration]
To do this, since the the DNS settings for the DHCP server in your router and fill them (both primary server and secondary) to be the IP of your HDA.