AdBlocking with combined hosts file

[wallaby32]

I would suggest the following:

1) Disconnect all other devices from your network apart from your PC and the Xbox (to reduce superfluous log entries).
2) From the router, enable detailed logging

# killall dnsmasq
# dnsmasq --log-async --log-queries --log-facility=/tmp/mnt/sda1/dnsmasq.log

3) Go onto the Xbox and recreate the problem.
4) Re-enable normal logging

# service restart_dnsmasq

5) Examine the dnsmasq.log file and see what was blocked (IP address = 0.0.0.0)

Appreciate the help. I will try this asap.

EDIT: this works beautifully by the way.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

[zekesdad]

Oct 8 08:44:57 dnsmasq[912]: reply ch3301.storage.live.com is <CNAME>
Oct 8 08:44:57 dnsmasq[912]: reply ch3301geo.storage.skyprod.akadns.net is <CNAME>
Oct 8 08:44:57 dnsmasq[912]: reply ch3301-storage-live-com.a-0011.a-msedge.net is <CNAME>
Oct 8 08:44:57 dnsmasq[912]: reply a-0011.a-msedge.net is 204.79.197.213

Im having a problem. I think that the filtering is blocking the new xbox dashboard from working correctly (cant log in, no internet funtions), but I don't see anything in the log that looks like requests are being redirected to 0.0.0.0, but what is this CNAME?

The reason I believe this DNS filtering is to blame is because whenever I disable it the xbox works fine, but as soon as it's enabled I'm back to square one. Thanks.

 

[ColinTaylor]

A CNAME is just an alias to another DNS record (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNAME_record). It just makes it easier to manage multiple DNS entries.

In your example the CNAME ch3301.storage.live.com is an alias for a-0011.a-msedge.net which has the IP address 204.79.197.213.

 

[zekesdad]

A CNAME is just an alias to another DNS record (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNAME_record). It just makes it easier to manage multiple DNS entries.

In your example the CNAME ch3301.storage.live.com is an alias for a-0011.a-msedge.net which has the IP address 204.79.197.213.

Ok, thank you. Any idea how I go about tracking down why the xbox one preview dashboard works when this is disabled and not when it's running?

 

[thelonelycoder]

@zekesdad Look what @ColinTaylor posted a few posts before. Enable the logging as suggested and work from there.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Appreciate the help. I will try this asap.

EDIT: this works beautifully by the way.

@wallaby32 Did you get to the bottom of this? It looks like @zekesdad is having the same problem.

 

[zekesdad]

@zekesdad Look what @ColinTaylor posted a few posts before. Enable the logging as suggested and work from there.

I've done that. The only thing i could find was a redirection of something.msn.com to 0.0.0.0 so I added that to the whitelists and updated. Now that gets allowed, and I don't see anything else that is getting blocked, just the references to CNAME, which apparently isn't the issue.

 

[thelonelycoder]

@zekesdad Are you using the advanced method? And if so what hosts files do you use, the ones posted or any additional ones?

Edit: Make sure you can ping these:
live.com
microsoft.com
msn.com
xbox.com
xboxlive.com

 

[zekesdad]

Im using the advanced method, but I didn't change any of the host files or anything like that.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@zekesdad It's probably a good idea to completely power off/on the Xbox between tests just in case it's caching some of the DNS lookups.

 

[zekesdad]

chris@mediaserver:~$ ping xbox.com
PING xbox.com (134.170.29.82) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- xbox.com ping statistics ---
63 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 62494ms

chris@mediaserver:~$ ping google.com
PING google.com (216.58.216.206) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from ord31s21-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.216.206): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=44.2 ms
64 bytes from ord31s21-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.216.206): icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=43.4 ms
64 bytes from ord31s21-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.216.206): icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=42.1 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 42.157/43.285/44.246/0.893 ms


the logs show this :

Oct 8 09:47:29 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:47:31 dnsmasq[1246]: query[A] xbox.com from 192.168.1.101
Oct 8 09:47:31 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded xbox.com to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:47:31 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xbox.com is 134.170.29.82
Oct 8 09:47:31 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xbox.com is 134.170.29.210
Oct 8 09:47:43 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100

 

[thelonelycoder]

What about the other domains I posted above? Pingwise I mean.

 

[zekesdad]

chris@mediaserver:~$ ping microsoft.com
PING microsoft.com (134.170.185.46) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- microsoft.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 9070ms
chris@mediaserver:~$ ping msn.com
PING msn.com (23.101.196.141) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- msn.com ping statistics ---
8 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 7054ms
chris@mediaserver:~$ ping xbox.com
PING xbox.com (134.170.29.82) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- xbox.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 8999ms
chris@mediaserver:~$ ping xboxlive.com
PING xboxlive.com (134.170.29.210) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- xboxlive.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 4032ms
chris@mediaserver:~$ ping live.com
PING live.com (65.55.206.154) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- live.com ping statistics ---
11 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 9999ms



and the log:


Oct 8 09:57:40 dnsmasq[1246]: query[A] microsoft.com from 192.168.1.101
Oct 8 09:57:40 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded microsoft.com to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:57:40 dnsmasq[1246]: reply microsoft.com is 134.170.185.46
Oct 8 09:57:40 dnsmasq[1246]: reply microsoft.com is 134.170.188.221
Oct 8 09:57:42 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100
Oct 8 09:57:42 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:57:50 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100
Oct 8 09:57:50 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:57:50 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:57:53 dnsmasq[1246]: query[A] msn.com from 192.168.1.101
Oct 8 09:57:53 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded msn.com to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:57:53 dnsmasq[1246]: reply msn.com is 23.101.196.141
Oct 8 09:57:57 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100
Oct 8 09:57:57 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: query[A] xbox.com from 192.168.1.101
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded xbox.com to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xbox.com is 134.170.29.82
Oct 8 09:58:04 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xbox.com is 134.170.29.210
Oct 8 09:58:11 dnsmasq[1246]: query[PTR] 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa from 192.168.1.100
Oct 8 09:58:11 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:58:11 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded 25.53.229.43.in-addr.arpa to 209.18.47.62
Oct 8 09:58:17 dnsmasq[1246]: query[A] xboxlive.com from 192.168.1.101
Oct 8 09:58:17 dnsmasq[1246]: forwarded xboxlive.com to 209.18.47.61
Oct 8 09:58:17 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xboxlive.com is 134.170.29.210
Oct 8 09:58:17 dnsmasq[1246]: reply xboxlive.com is 134.170.29.82



This is the contents of the whitelist.txt:
mobileads.msn.com
live.com
microsoft.com
msn.com
xbox.com
xboxlive.com
www.live.com
www.microsoft.com
www.msn.com
www.xbox.com
www.xboxlive.com

and the router has been power cycled.

 

[thelonelycoder]

So, what does the log say when you ping live.com and www.live.com?

 

[thelonelycoder]

And are you using OpenDNS?

 

[thelonelycoder]

Hang on, same problem here. Have no xbox but I use @ryzhov_al's How to disable Windows 10 tracking using ipset + Entware. Do you too?

Edit: Microsoft has disabled ping requests on most of their Servers. You'll have to check in the browser if it works. Getting an external IP address as your ping log says means everything is working as it should. Might be a port problem or some such for the XBOX?

 

[zekesdad]

1) same thing with www.live.com and so forth.
2) the only thing I've done with this router is your scripts and forwarding ports. I havent changed anything else, and i dont think its using OpenDNS
3) No, I haven't used that windows 10 tracking link.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Check my previous post again. I made an edit.

 

[sfx2000]

Please consider that when you block ads on Smallnetbuilder and snbforums,com - that takes away revenue that is used to fund this site.

 

[zekesdad]

Check my previous post again. I made an edit.

well, and i don't know a lot about this stuff, but I know that when I disabled this script it works. When the script is running, the xbox behaves very stange.