Diversion Diversion - the Router Ad-Blocker

[Swistheater]

like for example the other day i turned on a lock on a childs internet for misbehaving. it took down the whole network and threw diversion into a not wanting to work state. that is one example.

 

[thelonelycoder]

like for example the other day i turned on a lock on a childs internet for misbehaving. it took down the whole network and threw diversion into a not wanting to work state. that is one example.

Enabling Parental controls and/or Network Protection use external DNS Servers and therefore circumvents Dnsmasq and with it Diversion. This is nothing new and outside of my control.
Though, how enabling any of these would corrupt Diversion is a mystery to me. Diversion itself is unaffected by these changes and would simply sit there, idling on your router for lack of work.

 

[Swistheater]

possibly i just remember having to uninstall it and reinstall it other changes i made in this process involved adding the device to static list. i wasn't using parental control feature i was using the network map block connection feature.

 

[thelonelycoder]

possibly i just remember having to uninstall it and reinstall it other changes i made in this process involved adding the device to static list. i wasn't using parental control feature i was using the network map block connection feature.

I'm not aware that any of these changes would affect Diversion from functioning. Some may just bypass the local Dnsmasq which circumvents the services Diversion offers for all or some connected devices, nothing I can do about it.
To recreate I would need the (near) exact procedure to reproduce it on my systems.

 

[Swistheater]

It is an awesome pro

Enabling Parental controls and/or Network Protection use external DNS Servers and therefore circumvents Dnsmasq and with it Diversion. This is nothing new and outside of my control.
Though, how enabling any of these would corrupt Diversion is a mystery to me. Diversion itself is unaffected by these changes and would simply sit there, idling on your router for lack of work.

all the settings i adjusted were involving this screen

 

[Swistheater]

so i adjusted the mac IP address binding and then clicked block internet access on that one device. it caused a DNSMASQ restart i am assuming and diversion didn't seem to like it and it put the system in a continous restarting DNSMASQ

 

[thelonelycoder]

so i adjusted the mac IP address binding and then clicked block internet access on that one device. it caused a DNSMASQ restart i am assuming and diversion didn't seem to like it and it put the system in a continous restarting DNSMASQ

Which router model, firmware and Diversion version were you using when this happened?
How large is your blocking file?
Works just fine on my routers here.

 

[thelonelycoder]

so i adjusted the mac IP address binding and then clicked block internet access on that one device. it caused a DNSMASQ restart i am assuming and diversion didn't seem to like it and it put the system in a continous restarting DNSMASQ

This action does trigger a restart of or re-reads the dnsmasq.conf file about tree times in a second. Not good but this is firmware, not Diversion afaik.

 

[Swistheater]

Which router model, firmware and Diversion version were you using when this happened?
How large is your blocking file?
Works just fine on my routers here.

RT-AC5300, newest version of diversion.

 

[thelonelycoder]

RT-AC5300, newest version of diversion.

Doing this will restart Dnsmasq three times, no matter if Diversion is installed or not.
- Block Internet Access
- MAC and IP Address Binding
For a device in Network Map/Client status. Nothing for me to do than suggest to use a smaller blocking file or disable Diversion during such operations.

 

[Marin]

@thelonelycoder,

Is tweaking of preset blocking host files into custom ones eventually coming to future versions of Diversion? I think I may have seen a post here that you may have planned this for a PRO version but I may be wrong and thinking of something else instead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[thelonelycoder]

@thelonelycoder,

Is tweaking of preset blocking host files into custom ones eventually coming to future versions of Diversion? I think I may have seen a post here that you may have planned this for a PRO version but I may be wrong and thinking of something else instead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm not sure what exactly you mean. But customizing the hosts files URLs is built in since the first release of Diversion.

 

[Marin]

By tweaking I meant adding or removing sites directly on a preset host list. In other words, rather than whitelisting a site, can I go directly to a preset block list and remove from there?

 

[Marin]

See your example from the Diversion site. For example, if from this host list, I wanted to remove 0.0.0.0 mfr.a2dfp.net (as shown below), is there a way to remove it directly from this list or do I have to whitelist it? Also, how could I create my own custom host list that does not have that domain included in it? I suppose I can copy and paste it somewhere but then how do I add a URL to it so I can add it as a custom list?

Hosts files work in Diversion
# This MVPS HOSTS file is a free download from:            #
# http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm                    #
#                                                          #
# Notes: The Operating System does not read the "#" symbol #
# You can create your own notes, after the # symbol        #
# This *must* be the first line: 127.0.0.1     localhost   #
#                                                          #
#**********************************************************#
# -------------- Updated: January-23-2017 ---------------- #
#**********************************************************#
#                                                          #
# Disclaimer: this file is free to use for personal use    #
# only. Furthermore it is NOT permitted to copy any of the #
# contents or host on any other site without permission or #
# meeting the full criteria of the below license terms.    #
#                                                          #
# This work is licensed under the Creative Commons         #
# Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.            #
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/        #
#                                                          #
# License info for commercial purposes contact Winhelp2002 #
 
127.0.0.1 localhost
 
::1 localhost #[IPv6]
 
# [Start of entries generated by MVPS HOSTS]
#
# [Misc A - Z]
0.0.0.0 fr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 m.fr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 mfr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 ad.a8.net
0.0.0.0 asy.a8ww.net
0.0.0.0 static.a-ads.com
0.0.0.0 abcstats.com
0.0.0.0 a.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 adserver.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 adv.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 bimg.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 ca.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 track.acclaimnetwork.com

 

[thelonelycoder]

By tweaking I meant adding or removing sites directly on a preset host list. In other words, rather than whitelisting a site, can I go directly to a preset block list and remove from there?

Ask the maintainers of those hosts files if they grant you access to modify their lists on the server...
Seriously, this is not happening. Never will. That is what the whitelist is for.
Though something similar is/was planned for Diversion Pro: To have one router distribute the blocking file to other routers. But the development of the Pro version, along with the Diversion WebUI is on hold and may never come out for lack of time.

 

[Marin]

No worries, I understand completely. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[thelonelycoder]

See your example from the Diversion site. For example, if from this host list, I wanted to remove 0.0.0.0 mfr.a2dfp.net (as shown below), is there a way to remove it directly from this list or do I have to whitelist it? Also, how could I create my own custom host list that does not have that domain included in it? I suppose I can copy and paste it somewhere but then how do I add a URL to it so I can add it as a custom list?

Hosts files work in Diversion
# This MVPS HOSTS file is a free download from:            #
# http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm                    #
#                                                          #
# Notes: The Operating System does not read the "#" symbol #
# You can create your own notes, after the # symbol        #
# This *must* be the first line: 127.0.0.1     localhost   #
#                                                          #
#**********************************************************#
# -------------- Updated: January-23-2017 ---------------- #
#**********************************************************#
#                                                          #
# Disclaimer: this file is free to use for personal use    #
# only. Furthermore it is NOT permitted to copy any of the #
# contents or host on any other site without permission or #
# meeting the full criteria of the below license terms.    #
#                                                          #
# This work is licensed under the Creative Commons         #
# Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.            #
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/        #
#                                                          #
# License info for commercial purposes contact Winhelp2002 #
 
127.0.0.1 localhost
 
::1 localhost #[IPv6]
 
# [Start of entries generated by MVPS HOSTS]
#
# [Misc A - Z]
0.0.0.0 fr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 m.fr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 mfr.a2dfp.net
0.0.0.0 ad.a8.net
0.0.0.0 asy.a8ww.net
0.0.0.0 static.a-ads.com
0.0.0.0 abcstats.com
0.0.0.0 a.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 adserver.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 adv.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 bimg.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 ca.abv.bg
0.0.0.0 track.acclaimnetwork.com

Thats WHY there is a whitelist. And be careful to randomly copy a well maintained hosts list and host it yourself. These hosts files are regularily updated by their maintainers. Having your own static list is not a good idea at all. Use the whitelist and blacklist for your individual adjustment.

 

[Marin]

Makes sense - it is great to have them maintain and continually update such lists- one less thing for us to worry about.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Just wanted to come here and thank @thelonelycoder ... For all this time I haven't visited this forum, Diversion on my AX88U has been working perfectly. No issues at all.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Just wanted to come here and thank @thelonelycoder ... For all this time I haven't visited this forum, Diversion on my AX88U has been working perfectly. No issues at all.

Good to hear. I was afraid the RT-AX88U would have even more issues with my code than the RT-AC86U had when it came out with HND based code.
Since I now also have an AX88U to test on, I can confirm that the AX88U helped me tweak a couple of things in Diversion that I was struggling with and was unable to re-create on the AC86U.
These findings are part of the Diversion 4.0.8 changes I made.