Mikrotik: How to block websites/apps and force DNS queries to specific servers

In this post we’ll discuss two different ways to control standard DNS queries (UDP/TCP port 53) within a network using Mikrotik RouterOS. The intended outcome for doing this is to be able to either send all DNS queries from devices on your network to a specific external DNS server, such as 1.1.1.3 (CloudFlare DNS for Families), or to send all DNS queries on your network to the routers internal DNS server. The latter configuration allows for the addition of blackhole DNS records to be put within your routers cache for hosts to query.

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How ARP Works

ARP or Address Resolution Protocol is the mechanism used by hosts in a network to map IP addresses to MAC addresses of other hosts within the same network segment. It is also used for next hop resolution between edge devices to enable routing between networks.

When a packet is created by a host intended for another host on that network, an ARP request is broadcast out out from the sender. Since this ARP request is a broadcast message it will be sent to every

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