Diversion Diversion - the Router Ad-Blocker

[loveleeyoungae]

Had an issue a short while since wherby my USB became corrupt, so I've reinstalled everything fresh. I was going to use my Diversion backups to restore my blocking lists etc but it seems every backup I've been sent, the tar.gz file is corrupt / empty (according to winzip / winrar

Am I basically having to start again from scratch, or is this a known bug with a workaround I'm too simple to see staring me in the face?

WinRAR sometimes doesn't read .tar.gz well. You can try 7z, or a better way is to opem them in linux.

 

[thelonelycoder]

What I don't understand, though, is "Sod's Law". Maybe someone will explain it to me in German.

In German this would be the Vorführeffekt or simply Murphy's Law as it's better known in Switzerland.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Had an issue a short while since wherby my USB became corrupt, so I've reinstalled everything fresh. I was going to use my Diversion backups to restore my blocking lists etc but it seems every backup I've been sent, the tar.gz file is corrupt / empty (according to winzip / winrar

Am I basically having to start again from scratch, or is this a known bug with a workaround I'm too simple to see staring me in the face?

What version of Diversion are you running? I did some (undocumented) changes in one of the earlier releases to correct this exact error.

 

[elorimer]

Ah, the laws:

Murphy's law: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
Sod's law: if something goes wrong, it will go wrong in the worst way.
Finagle's law: if something goes wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time.

Although I think Murphy's law is originally along the lines of: if there is more than one way to do something, and one of those ways leads to disaster, then someone will do it that way. More apt for this forum, I think, and probably leading to what @thelonelycoder describes as an "error between head and keyboard".

 

[Chrisgtl]

Can anyone help me here? This has stumped me now so need assistance.

I've just upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 and now I can't reach webpages when I enable my Windows client Torguard.

I have latest Merlin on 86U (192.168.0.1), with latest Diversion (pixelserv-tls @ 192.168.0.9). Modem is Draytek in bridged mode.

Everythnig works perfectly until I start Torguard and then I get DNS errors. If I try configure Torguard with different DNS parameters I can either get webpages to load without Diversion blocking ads or I get no webpages at all.

I don't understand as on Win 7 everything was working perfectly.

--------

I've changed that many settings now I'm going to uninstall Torguard and the TAP and start over. Should my Merlin > WAN > DNS be set to automatically connect to DNS or do I manually enter my own?

 

[Chrisgtl]

These are my Torguard DNS settings so far.

 

[martinr]

Well, I guess I was able to locate the "error" that isn't actually a error myself. I am using Firefox Developer Edition with the following features enabled: Secure DNS, DNSSEC, TLS 1.3 and Encrypted SNI. Apparently Diversion does not work with these settings. Nevertheless, I thank you for your help! What I don't understand, though, is "Sod's Law". Maybe someone will explain it to me in German.

I’m surprised ANYTHING works with all that you have running!

Sod’s Law - from Wikipedia “Sod's law is the axiom that "if something can go wrong, it will". As it was explained to me, “the toast always falls on the floor jam side down”

But as for router fixes working only until you post in the forum to say it’s now fixed, I think I’m wrong: that might not be Sod’s Law but a quantum mechanics effect as seen in the double slit experiment: the router stays fixed only until you tell people it’s fixed.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Ah, the laws:

Murphy's law: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
Sod's law: if something goes wrong, it will go wrong in the worst way.
Finagle's law: if something goes wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time.

Although I think Murphy's law is originally along the lines of: if there is more than one way to do something, and one of those ways leads to disaster, then someone will do it that way. More apt for this forum, I think, and probably leading to what @thelonelycoder describes as an "error between head and keyboard".

I've only ever heard of Murphy's Law. Good to know there are other ways of describing the way things go wrong ;-)

 

[thebatfink]

Hi, I’ve used this in the past (ABSolution) but in the end I removed it as I felt it was impacting browsing performance. Today I reinstalled the latest version and I do have pages loading very slow again? It’s default ‘standard’ install and standard blocking file.

My router is AC86U, I see couple of percent cpu usage and 59% memory usage. I have no other custom software installed on the router. I do have an openVPN client running but only forcing one client through it which I am not interested in ad blocking (I see performance issues with the non VPN routed connected devices). I also have IPSEC server running, but again this is devices connected directly to the router which seem to have the issue.

I am experiencing this on wireless clients, haven’t tried with wired.

Does this sound normal? It’s like some webpages take forever to load up or sometimes never seem to load at all. If I remove Diversion the problem is immediately gone away. Examples of websites I see load slowly or not at all sometimes : www.rcgroups.com www.boots.com www.currys.co.uk many more.. Some of these are large retailer sites in the UK and don’t have any kind of malicious ads etc. so seems odd? What to do to identify the problem?

Thanks!

Edit: just to answer some common questions.
Pixelserv has its own IP outisde the pool 192.168.1.2 Ok.
My DNS Server 1 and 2 options in routers DCHP settings are both blank with nothing maintained.
My devices are configured for DCHP and automatic DNS and have fetched my routers IP as DNS server, 192.168.1.1.
My connected devices I experience this on are my iPad and 2 different iPhones (my only desktop machine is router all traffic through the openVPN client).
Router has latest merlin firmware 284.8.2 (no beta version).
Installed onto a freshly formatted USB device.

 

[Quoc Huynh]

Hi, I’ve used this in the past (ABSolution) but in the end I removed it as I felt it was impacting browsing performance. Today I reinstalled the latest version and I do have pages loading very slow again? It’s default ‘standard’ install and standard blocking file.

My router is AC86U, I see couple of percent cpu usage and 59% memory usage. I have no other custom software installed on the router. I do have an openVPN client running but only forcing one client through it which I am not interested in ad blocking (I see performance issues with the non VPN routed connected devices). I also have IPSEC server running, but again this is devices connected directly to the router which seem to have the issue.

I am experiencing this on wireless clients, haven’t tried with wired.

Does this sound normal? It’s like some webpages take forever to load up or sometimes never seem to load at all. If I remove Diversion the problem is immediately gone away. Examples of websites I see load slowly or not at all sometimes : www.rcgroups.com www.boots.com www.currys.co.uk many more.. Some of these are large retailer sites in the UK and don’t have any kind of malicious ads etc. so seems odd? What to do to identify the problem?

Thanks!

Edit: just to answer some common questions.
Pixelserv has its own IP outisde the pool 192.168.1.2 Ok.
My DNS Server 1 and 2 options in routers DCHP settings are both blank with nothing maintained.
My devices are configured for DCHP and automatic DNS and have fetched my routers IP as DNS server, 192.168.1.1.
My connected devices I experience this on are my iPad and 2 different iPhones (my only desktop machine is router all traffic through the openVPN client).
Router has latest merlin firmware 284.8.2 (no beta version).
Installed onto a freshly formatted USB device.

My experience with slow loading pages on Diversion is that those websites may be coincidentally in a pre-set blacklist. This in turn makes the loading time last nearly forever. Therefore, may I suggest that you SSH into the router -> diversion -> el option -> edit whitelist -> add domain -> add those websites into the whitelist -> afterwards, select option 3. Process whitelist. Then see if the issue still persists...

 

[thebatfink]

Thanks. I moved the block file to small and it got a bit better, I then watched the log (nice feature!) for blocked domains and seems various analytics / stats domains being blocked is what is causing it to happen. White listing those got it much much better, I think maybe OK now.

But if these domains prevent legitimate large retailer websites from even working, why are they blocked? For what reason does someone think they should be blocked, will they allow ads through and make using the software redundant?

Thanks!

 

[dave14305]

Do you have the Pixelserv CA certificate imported on your devices? See the Import section in the wiki:
https://github.com/kvic-z/pixelserv-tls/wiki/Create-and-Import-the-CA-Certificate

 

[thebatfink]

I did not, but I do now Presumably I did need to do that? Didn’t see it on Diversion website instructions..

 

[Skeptical.me]

Do you have the Pixelserv CA certificate imported on your devices? See the Import section in the wiki:
https://github.com/kvic-z/pixelserv-tls/wiki/Create-and-Import-the-CA-Certificate

I have diversion installed on my RT-AC86U I'm assuming that since its working fine and pages load quickly on all devices (and I see no ads) that the ca certs have already been created? Or do I have to follow the GitHub directions?

 

[visortgw]

I have diversion installed on my RT-AC86U I'm assuming that since its working fine and pages load quickly on all devices (and I see no ads) that the ca certs have already been created? Or do I have to follow the GitHub directions?

The CA certs are required (highly suggested?) for Pixelserv -- Diversion itself does not need certs.

 

[Skeptical.me]

The CA certs are required (highly suggested?) for Pixelserv -- Diversion itself does not need certs.

Okay. So, forgive me for my confusion. Pixelserv is apart of Diversion? Is it worth adding the Certs to pixel serv even though Diversion doesn't require them? I assume from your first part of the answer it is yes.

 

[visortgw]

Okay. So, forgive me for my confusion. Pixelserv is apart of Diversion? Is it worth adding the Certs to pixel serv even though Diversion doesn't require them? I assume from your first part of the answer it is yes.

If you installed and configured Pixelserv as part of the Diversion installation (or separately via amtm or manually), definitely yes.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Awesome, thank you very much.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I have diversion installed on my RT-AC86U I'm assuming that since its working fine and pages load quickly on all devices (and I see no ads) that the ca certs have already been created? Or do I have to follow the GitHub directions?

During the install of Diversion Standard, the pixelserv-tls certs are auto-generated by Diversion if not found.
Since I imported the certificate long ago into every device, I reuse the same certs on every router. After a reinstall I simply replace the newly generated certs with my backup. This way, I don't have to reimport it.

 

[user1085]

Getting issues with removing swap file. It says swap file detected, but then finds now swap file

What do you want to do? sw
____________________________________________________

This manages the Swap file.
A Swap file is useful when the router runs out of
memory (RAM). See router WebUI/Tools under Memory.

Swap file detected at:
/tmp/mnt/sda1/myswap.swp

Remove the Swap file? [1=Yes e=Exit] 1

Error No Swap file found at
/tmp/mnt/sda1/myswap.swp