AB-Solution - The Ad Blocking Solution

[thelonelycoder]

Hi,

I'm trying to exclude clients from the ad blocking as some family members want to see adds on some devices and have followed the instructions from this page: https://www.ab-solution.info/faq-reader/how-to-exclude-a-client-from-ad-blocking.html

When I followed these steps my client(s) that needed to be blocked didn't block anything. It seems like the only way of doing this is by adding this client to force it to go through the router. Instead of excluding clients this seems to work like enabling clients to use the add block function.

Anyone any ideas about what I might be missing?
Thanks

On my RT-AC87U on 380.68_4 this still works exactly as described in the FAQ.
Did you miss a step?

 

[pietjepuk100]

Yes, I missed something. Apparently reading is harder than I thought

I had the global filter set to custom also, so that is why it kept going over the 8.8.8.8.

My bad, thanks for the info.

 

[2992]

@thelonelycoder,
(newb here) I have noticed in my external firewall that the router is trying to connect these 2 IP addresses when booting up (54.172.47.69 and 74.125.143.127).

My external firewall is configured to block such “unauthorised” connections and is blocking them, and now I am trying to find what are they, and what's going on with them…

Is ABS trying to make any outbound connections to those IPs, or any idea what could they be?

 

[thelonelycoder]

@thelonelycoder,
(newb here) I have noticed in my external firewall that the router is trying to connect these 2 IP addresses when booting up (54.172.47.69 and 74.125.143.127).

My external firewall is configured to block such “unauthorised” connections and is blocking them, and now I am trying to find what are they, and what's going on with them…

Is ABS trying to make any outbound connections to those IPs, or any idea what could they be?

Those are owned by Google:
https://www.whois365.com/en/ip/74.125.143.127
and Amazon:
https://www.whois365.com/en/ip/54.172.47.69

Note that all AB-Solution download URL's are auto-whitelisted in AB-Solution and Skynet.
It looks like these two are not used by any of the hosts file domains.
Apart from that, AB-Solution does not perform any outbound activity at all during boot up. Only at the scheduled time(s) for the blocking file update or if you have Update Notification un enabled.

This also could be Wanduck probing, the Asus service checking internet connectivity through google if it is set so in dual WAN settings, the standard being dns.msftncsi.com.
The Amazon IP could be the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware checker that runs at boot. @RMerlin runs that part of his Firmware update notification through a Amazon CDN.

Wanduck can be disabled in Tools/Other Settings/
Set "Wan: Use DNS probes to determine if WAN is up (default: Yes)" to No.
The firmware update notification setting is on the same page:
"New firmware version check"

 

[RMerlin]

The Amazon IP could be the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware checker that runs at boot. @RMerlin runs that part of his Firmware update notification through a Amazon CDN.

I use Cloudflare, not Amazon.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I use Cloudflare, not Amazon.

Thanks, corrected.

 

[2992]

Those are owned by Google:
https://www.whois365.com/en/ip/74.125.143.127
and Amazon:
https://www.whois365.com/en/ip/54.172.47.69

Note that all AB-Solution download URL's are auto-whitelisted in AB-Solution and Skynet.
It looks like these two are not used by any of the hosts file domains.
Apart from that, AB-Solution does not perform any outbound activity at all during boot up. Only at the scheduled time(s) for the blocking file update or if you have Update Notification un enabled.

This also could be Wanduck probing, the Asus service checking internet connectivity through google if it is set so in dual WAN settings, the standard being dns.msftncsi.com.
The Amazon IP could be the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware checker that runs at boot. @RMerlin runs that part of his Firmware update notification through a Amazon CDN.

Wanduck can be disabled in Tools/Other Settings/
Set "Wan: Use DNS probes to determine if WAN is up (default: Yes)" to No.
The firmware update notification setting is on the same page:
"New firmware version check"

I have set "no" on "Wan: Use DNS probes to determine if WAN is up (default: Yes)" option, and rebooted. The two IPs (54.172.47.69 and 74.125.143.127) are both still showing up in the external firewall. After few more reboots, Amazon's IP was not showing up anymore, instead, another IP popped up: 52.87.201.4 (also Amazon's IP, after checking it out.)

I do not have (or I cannot see) on the same page the option "New firmware version check" for to disable it.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I tried AB-Solution but I keep getting Error 22 and pixelserv-tls isn't working either. Overall, it never blocked any ADs for me.


Thank you for this great job.

All the best,
oggy.

Would you mind sharing your router model and the exact firmware version you run?
What is the error when you run 22 and why would pixelserv not work?

 

[thelonelycoder]

I have set "no" on "Wan: Use DNS probes to determine if WAN is up (default: Yes)" option, and rebooted. The two IPs (54.172.47.69 and 74.125.143.127) are both still showing up in the external firewall. After few more reboots, Amazon's IP was not showing up anymore, instead, another IP popped up: 52.87.201.4 (also Amazon's IP, after checking it out.)

I do not have (or I cannot see) on the same page the option "New firmware version check" for to disable it.

Router model and exact firmware?
The option to disable Wanduck has been there since about 380.65 or 66.
Anyway, since these IP's are early in the bootprocess the are either Asus service related or maybe Skynet.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I re-installed pixelserv-tls, I faced something but I continued anyway and forced the install, now when I try to run it, I get this:
Starting pixelserv-tls (AB-Solution)... done.
pixelserv-tls is not running

Router model: Asus RT-AC5300
Firmware: Asuswrt-Merlin 380.68_4

Isn't there a log file that I can post here to explain my issue better?

AB-Solution has no logfile(s) for itself. But maybe the Syslog reports something relevant to this.

Look at this post, run these in the terminal but change the IP address to your pixelserv-tls IP:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/a...ing-solution-v3-9-1.37511/page-57#post-339586

 

[franku]

I'm 'learning by doing' with Ab-solution and it is working admirably, though I haven't found a way to allow videos to play on wired.com. I was going to try whitelisting *.cloudfront.net but I now realise wildcards aren't an option.
Has anyone more capable found a way to allow videos to play on wired.com?

 

[2992]

Router model and exact firmware?
The option to disable Wanduck has been there since about 380.65 or 66.
Anyway, since these IP's are early in the bootprocess the are either Asus service related or maybe Skynet.

I have a Netgear R7000 with 380.68_4 XWRT-Vortex.
@Adamm has confirmed that Skynet has no relation to either IP.
So, seems to be probably either Asus's IPs, or XWRT-Vortex's IPs... I'll need to find out, as I do not like the idea to have the router performing communication behind my back or without my knowledge. :|

 

[thelonelycoder]

I have a Netgear R7000 with 380.68_4 XWRT-Vortex.
@Adamm has confirmed that Skynet has no relation to either IP.
So, seems to be probably either Asus's IPs, or XWRT-Vortex's IPs... I'll need to find out, as I do not like the idea to have the router performing communication behind my back or without my knowledge. :|

Xwrt-Vortex is closed source, the maintainer never released the source.
It is based on Asuswrt-Merlin, that much we know. Ask it's maintainer what these requests mean.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I followed the steps and here is a screenshot:

192.168.1.1 is your router IP, you don't want to use that for these tests.
Assuming that 192.168.1.3 is the IP you reserved for pixelserv-tls during the installation in AB-Solution, do this (the IP is shown in the AB-Solution UI behind "ps pixelserv-tls [192.168.x.x]):
- Reboot router
- Look at the Syslog for errors pertaining to pixelserv-tls, they may offer a clue.

Then:

ifconfig br0:pixelserv 192.168.1.3 up

then

ping -c 2 192.168.1.3

then

/opt/etc/init.d/S80pixelserv-tls restart

then

wget --tries=6 --retry-connrefused -O /tmp/servstats.txt 192.168.1.3/servstats.txt

then

cat /tmp/servstats.txt

Also of interest are the outputs of these two commands:

netstat -tuln | grep :443

netstat -tuln | grep :80

 

[thelonelycoder]

I did what you said and i'll show you a screenshot + syslog.
https://www.pastiebin.com/59f06c643c4d2

You've set the pixelserv-tls IP to the router IP which will not work, also you did not reserve an IP when asked during install of pixelserv-tls:

Aug 1 04:00:22 dnsmasq-dhcp[571]: DHCP, IP range 192.168.1.2 -- 192.168.1.254, lease time 1d
Oct 25 14:40:48 pixelserv[1120]: pixelserv-tls version: v35.HZ12.Kk compiled: Sep 25 2017 19:44:15 options: 192.168.1.1

You need to read and follow the instructions given during pixelserv-tls install very carefully or else this will not work.
Start over by starting the AB-Solution UI, then enter ps, then select "7. Reset pixelserv settings, change PS IP" to reset the settings.
After this, reboot the router, start AB-Solution UI again, enter ps and reinstall pixelserv-tls, reading exactly what is wanted from you.

 

[pattiri]

I did what you said and i'll show you a screenshot + syslog.

https://www.pastiebin.com/59f06c643c4d2

2 days ago, I've changed pixelserv-tls logging configurations via AB-Solution menu just because of my curiosity and faced the same issue. I've tried re-installing entware, pixelserv-tls, AB-Solution again but didn't help. Finally I've formatted my USB and start all over and it fixed. I hope you can fix it with a shorter way.

 

[thelonelycoder]

2 days ago, I've changed pixelserv-tls logging configurations via AB-Solution menu just because of my curiosity and faced the same issue. I've tried re-installing entware, pixelserv-tls, AB-Solution again but didn't help. Finally I've formatted my USB and start all over and it fixed. I hope you can fix it with a shorter way.

If you had posted the Syslog entries you probably could have saved yourself a lot of work.
What option were you trying to set?

What OP did was set the ps IP the same as the router IP during install. This cannot and will not work.

 

[pattiri]

If you had posted the Syslog entries you probably could have saved yourself a lot of work.
What option were you trying to set?

What OP did was set the ps IP the same as the router IP during install. This cannot and will not work.

I'm away from my router I can't remember it exactly but as far as I remembered I've changed pixelserv-tls logging to debug detail.

I'm using 172.24.5.0/28 subnet in my home network and pixelserv-tls using 172.24.5.25. It was working OK for about one year until I've tried to change logging detail.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I'm away from my router I can't remember it exactly but as far as I remembered I've changed pixelserv-tls logging to debug detail.

I'm using 172.24.5.0/28 subnet in my home network and pixelserv-tls using 172.24.5.25. It was working OK for about one year until I've tried to change logging detail.

If you have the latest pixelserv-tls.add addon file (use 12 to re-download all addons) and have either pixelserv-tls.Kl-test2 or pixelserv-tls.Kl-test3 manually installed it will work 100% out of the box.
First select to set switches in ps, then select add switch and first type -l, hit enter then add your option 1-5.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I'm 'learning by doing' with Ab-solution and it is working admirably, though I haven't found a way to allow videos to play on wired.com. I was going to try whitelisting *.cloudfront.net but I now realise wildcards aren't an option.
Has anyone more capable found a way to allow videos to play on wired.com?

It really depends how much you block with your blocking file type.
I use "shooter40sw" as the type and need to whitelist d2c8v52ll5s99u.cloudfront.net so that videos in the "Latest Videos" section on the front page play.