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Knowledge Base > Configuring & Using OpenDNS > Configuring OpenDNS
Internal DNS Servers
Some home networks and most small-and-medium businesses, schools, and large enterprises use a dedicated server to route and answer all DNS requests from computers and devices within the network. For these networks, configuring OpenDNS on the internal DNS server is the recommended best practice.
A network that uses an internal DNS server can increase performance when using OpenDNS as the forwarder for external DNS requests. Configuring an internal DNS server to use OpenDNS ensures that all systems on that network realize an intelligent, safer, and faster Internet experience.
Internal DNS servers forwarding to OpenDNS will return results more quickly and consistently as the result of the two OpenDNS features detailed in the following table.
| OpenDNS Features | The Benefits |
|---|---|
| Proprietary OpenDNS SmartCache returns the last known valid IP address for websites that may be experiencing difficulty and actively stores the IP addresses of the most visited sites by all Internet users. | OpenDNS end-users can access websites that are temporarily not accessible to other Internet users. In addition, OpenDNS end-users will get to websites much faster. |
| Our server network uses Anycast routing technology to guarantee the best performance and most readily available Internet DNS service. | Internet DNS requests are routed to the closest OpenDNS server to you. If that server is down for maintenance, your DNS requests are routed to our next closest server. |
To configure OpenDNS on an internal DNS server, follow this link for detailed instructions.
If you need additional IP addresses (3rd and 4th priority forwarders), you should use the following: 208.67.220.222 and 208.67.222.220.