Static Routes on Linksys EA9500 - possible?

[psychopomp1]

Hi,

To those who have the Linksys EA9500 (v1 or v2) can you tell me if the static routing function on the stock firmware ( under connectivity > advanced routing > Static Routing) works? I've read reports that despite the option being there, it doesn't work. I'm planning on getting an EA9500v2 (if i can find one!) and I will need to block Google DNS on it in order to access Netflix from different regions and this will need to be done in static routing. Static routing works without any issues on Netgear and Asus routers.

Cheers

 

[chadster766]

Hi,

To those who have the Linksys EA9500 (v1 or v2) can you tell me if the static routing function on the stock firmware ( under connectivity > advanced routing > Static Routing) works? I've read reports that despite the option being there, it doesn't work. I'm planning on getting an EA9500v2 (if i can find one!) and I will need to block Google DNS on it in order to access Netflix from different regions and this will need to be done in static routing. Static routing works without any issues on Netgear and Asus routers.

Cheers

What static routes rules do you want to create?

 

[psychopomp1]

Hi chadster766

Would be grateful if you could test the following static routes on the EA9500:

- Route name: blockgoogle1
- Destination IP: 8.8.8.8
- Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 (or 255.255.255.255)
- Gateway: IP address of router (eg 192.168.1.1)
- Interface: WAN or LAN & Wireless

- Route name: blockgoogle2
- Destination IP: 8.8.4.4
- Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 (or 255.255.255.255)
- Gateway: IP address of router (eg 192.168.1.1)
- Interface: WAN or LAN & Wireless

Once the above is setup (you may need to reboot router), trying pinging 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 from any connected device. If you're unable to reach these IPs then the EA9500 has successfully managed to block these IPs and the static routing function works.

Many thanks!
Psycho

 

[chadster766]

The below Static routes blocked Google DNS on the EA9500:

 

[psychopomp1]

Thats great news, thank you chadster766

 

[psychopomp1]

Hi Chadster 766
I finally got my EA9500v2 delivered but unfortunately the static routing function on it is either broken or I'm doing something wrong. No matter what IP address I put in 'Gateway' field, the router is NOT accepting it. I'm guessing you tested this on a EA9500v1, so possibly this needs to be fixed on v2 of the EA9500. Is this possible to get this feature working in a future firmware release? I'm using firmware 2.1.1.183171 on the EA9500v2. Many thanks!

[

 

[ColinTaylor]

Have you specified LAN as the interface? It's obscured in your screenshot.

And presumably the gateway address is that of a non-existent address on your LAN, not the actual router address?

 

[psychopomp1]

Have you specified LAN as the interface? It's obscured in your screenshot.

And presumably the gateway address is that of a non-existent address on your LAN, not the actual router address?

Yes tried both 'LAN' and 'INTERNET' as interface settings without success. No matter what IP address I put in GATEWAY field, its not accepted - whether its the router IP 192.168.1.1 or something like 1.1.1.1. which doesn't exist on my network.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Yes tried both 'LAN' and 'INTERNET' as interface settings without success. No matter what IP address I put in GATEWAY field, its not accepted - whether its the router IP 192.168.1.1 or something like 1.1.1.1. which doesn't exist on my network.

If you use the "LAN" interface I'd expect the IP address would have to be on the same subnet, so 192.168.1.x. But I don't have a Netgear, maybe they do it differently.

 

[psychopomp1]

YESSSSS!! Got it working in the end. The gateway IP address of 192.168.1.199 did the trick, with LAN selected as the interface. Thanks ColinTaylor

 

[chadster766]

YESSSSS!! Got it working in the end. The gateway IP address of 192.168.1.199 did the trick, with LAN selected as the interface. Thanks ColinTaylor

Sorry for my delayed response.

Yes in my previous example 192.168.1.254 was an IP Address outside the LAN DHCP range and it was not assigned as a Static IP Address to any device.

 

[psychopomp1]

Thanks for clearing that up chadster766.

An unrelated question: during normal router operation (with all 3 radios switched on), I'm only getting the Linksys logo solidly illuminated on the EA9500V2, not the white bars as described here:
https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=178063

Any idea why the white bars aren't being lit up?

 

[chadster766]

Do you have the LEDs' disabled in the WebUI?

 

[coxhaus]

Just a quick question. Can't you select any DNS you want and block all other DNS with an ACL?

 

[sfx2000]

Just a quick question. Can't you select any DNS you want and block all other DNS with an ACL?

They can override the ISP's with a manually entered DNS - however that is for IPv4 last time I looked, not for IPv6, and no ACL's there...

 

[coxhaus]

They can override the ISP's with a manually entered DNS - however that is for IPv4 last time I looked, not for IPv6, and no ACL's there...

I live in the IP4 world. He was using IPv4 IP addresses. To me it is weird what he is doing.

All the Linksys I have used in the past support ACLs.

I have always thought it better to block at the firewall then to route traffic to a null. The latter is you are allowing in excess unwanted traffic which has an impact on your local network traffic.

 

[psychopomp1]

Do you have the LEDs' disabled in the WebUI?

Ah yes, that was the reason. Enabling the LEDs has brought back the front white LEDs to life.

 

[psychopomp1]

I live in the IP4 world. He was using IPv4 IP addresses. To me it is weird what he is doing.

All the Linksys I have used in the past support ACLs.

I have always thought it better to block at the firewall then to route traffic to a null. The latter is you are allowing in excess unwanted traffic which has an impact on your local network traffic.

I'll explain in more detail why I need to block Google DNS at router/network level. Btw I have an ipv4 address.

I have a Netflix subscription and use the smartdns service on unblockus.com to watch Netflix from other other regions in the UK. This means just changing the DNS on my device(s) to the unblockus supplied one and hey presto I can watch Netflix USA in UK. This worked fine until a year or two ago and then Netflix cottoned onto the fact that every man and his dog were watching geographically restricted content so started blocking such services on some devices. One method they use to block this practice is by forcing Android media players such as a Nvidia Shield TV box to use its hard coded Google DNS to give Netflix the true location of the user....therefore if I try to use unblockus DNS on my Nvidia Shield box, Netflix will still block Netflix from non-UK regions. However once i block Google DNS on my network (8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4) then the Nvidia Shield box is unable to ping these servers and I'm able to use Netflix from other regions. This article explains this well

https://dns-trick.com/support/kb/faq.php?cid=3

 

[coxhaus]

Thanks for explaining. My thought is can't you add an ACL to block Google's DNS port 53 on the Linksys for IP 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4? Did Linksys remove ACLs? I read it again and sounds like you also need to block ping using an ACL to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. So it might be easier to block the IP 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 on all ports.

I have not used a Linksys router since they spun off from Cisco.

 

[sfx2000]

@coxhaus - the "classic" Linksys WebUI was much better than where Linksys is now with the "SmartWIFI" WebUI with respect to routing configuration - it's getting better over time, but not the same..

@psychopomp1 - yeah, apps shouldn't hard code DNS into the application directly - not only because of the issue with geo fencing, but also it can break content delivery networks..