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Helping You Build A Better [Home Network]

24

Posts

  • TavTav Irish Minister for DefenceRegistered User regular
    Tav wrote: »
    Tav wrote: »
    Tav wrote: »
    This seems like the right place for this sort of question.

    We recently upgraded to fttc internet which comes into the house and connects to an ISP modem which I have connected to a Netgear R8000 for wifi. When we upgraded, the ISP gave us a new modem which is an Eir F3000, which is just a rebranded Huawei device. The annoying thing is that this new modem doesn't allow you to specify a custom DNS server, which means my pi-hole has stopped working. I've tried looking into replacement modems but I'm kind of at a loss at the differences in dsl vs vsdl vs adsl and whether or not a new modem will actually be compatible with my ISP. Is there a way of knowing this ahead of time, or do I just need to call up the ISP and go "hey this thing is garbo, what'll work as a replacement?"

    Tav - If you're wanting to replace the modem, then yes, you'll need to ask your ISP for what they need on their end to get it to work. That said, it sounds like they gave you a combo modem/router - there are ways to work around that without replacing your existing router (though they do tend to be a pain.)

    Yeah it's a modem/router combo. I have the wifi turned off on it and it just feeds into a router I have here because the last box they gave me was awful.

    That works fine - just a few things to do to make it as smooth as possible:

    * Since you're not relying on the cable modem/router (CMR) to provide any services, turn off DHCP and DNS on it if possible, and assign your personal router (PR) a static IP address on the WAN.
    * If the CMR allows port forwarding or DMZ configuration , set it to forward all ports to the PR static IP address.
    * Make sure that the local network masks for the CMR and PR local networks are different - i.e. if the CMR has a network mask of 192.168.0.x, set the PR network mask to 192.168.2.x.

    yeah its not possible to disable the DNS, which is why I was asking about the replacement

    I think this will do the trick so i'm going to try it

    You shouldn't need to worry about the CMR DNS on the PR network - since you control that network, you should be able to define where local devices on that network get their DNS queries resolved.

    I could but there's 20+ devices belonging to a bunch of people, inc some Androids that don't easily allow it. I'd rather set it at router level than have put in that much effort.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Tav wrote: »
    Tav wrote: »
    Tav wrote: »
    Tav wrote: »
    This seems like the right place for this sort of question.

    We recently upgraded to fttc internet which comes into the house and connects to an ISP modem which I have connected to a Netgear R8000 for wifi. When we upgraded, the ISP gave us a new modem which is an Eir F3000, which is just a rebranded Huawei device. The annoying thing is that this new modem doesn't allow you to specify a custom DNS server, which means my pi-hole has stopped working. I've tried looking into replacement modems but I'm kind of at a loss at the differences in dsl vs vsdl vs adsl and whether or not a new modem will actually be compatible with my ISP. Is there a way of knowing this ahead of time, or do I just need to call up the ISP and go "hey this thing is garbo, what'll work as a replacement?"

    Tav - If you're wanting to replace the modem, then yes, you'll need to ask your ISP for what they need on their end to get it to work. That said, it sounds like they gave you a combo modem/router - there are ways to work around that without replacing your existing router (though they do tend to be a pain.)

    Yeah it's a modem/router combo. I have the wifi turned off on it and it just feeds into a router I have here because the last box they gave me was awful.

    That works fine - just a few things to do to make it as smooth as possible:

    * Since you're not relying on the cable modem/router (CMR) to provide any services, turn off DHCP and DNS on it if possible, and assign your personal router (PR) a static IP address on the WAN.
    * If the CMR allows port forwarding or DMZ configuration , set it to forward all ports to the PR static IP address.
    * Make sure that the local network masks for the CMR and PR local networks are different - i.e. if the CMR has a network mask of 192.168.0.x, set the PR network mask to 192.168.2.x.

    yeah its not possible to disable the DNS, which is why I was asking about the replacement

    I think this will do the trick so i'm going to try it

    You shouldn't need to worry about the CMR DNS on the PR network - since you control that network, you should be able to define where local devices on that network get their DNS queries resolved.

    I could but there's 20+ devices belonging to a bunch of people, inc some Androids that don't easily allow it. I'd rather set it at router level than have put in that much effort.

    And that should not be a problem, because the setting for the local network DNS for your personal router's network is completely separate from any DNS settings provided upstream - this is part of why you run your own network on your own hardware. Whatever settings are on the cable modem/router network stop at the boundary between it and your personal network.

    Edit: The thing to remember is that while your personal router is tied into the local network governed by the cable modem/router, the network it governs is completely separate from that network - remember, routers are designed to intermediate between different networks. Having your local network running a Pi-hole for DNS resolution is completely separate from the DNS resolution setup of any network upstream from your router.

    AngelHedgie on
    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Is there a "how to identify the cause of an internet issue" guide that exists? I'm getting the same kind of issues that Arch mentioned (internet just craps out, sometimes every 2 or 5 minutes for a while, usually reappearing after 30 seconds or so), except I'm wired directly into my router. I could call my ISP, but I'd like to be able to do some super basic trouble-shooting on my own before doing that.

    Doing a 5 minute power down of the modem sometimes "solves" the issue for a while. Likewise turning off the router. The modem, router, and ethernet cables are brand new (within the last two months). :sad:

    Here's how I run a check to figure out where my network problem is happening.

    First, I confirm that my network stack is OK, by pinging the loopback address:
    ping 127.0.0.1
    
    This makes sure that the logical side of the network is working. This is almost always pro forma, and if this fails, it indicates a serious problem with your computer as the network stack on it is corrupted. This is unlikely to be the case, so I then move on to confirming that my network interface is working:
    ipconfig 
    ping <IP address of my local machine>
    
    Now, this may seem like I'm doing the same thing as above, but this is different - whereas the first test was checking the logical side of my computer's networking configuration, this is checking the hardware side, by pinging the IP address assigned. ipconfig is a command on Windows machines that shows the current state of the network connections on your computer, including their IP addresses - which I then use in the ping request. If this succeeds, then the next step is to ping the near side of the router:
    ping <IP address of the gateway>
    
    This verifies that the router is up, running, and receiving communications on the local network. If this fails, then the router needs to be reset (and if this is an overly regular occurrence, it may be time for the router to be replaced.) If this succeeds, then the last step is to verify reaching a server online. Many online services turn off ping requests to protect against DDOS, but thankfully Google doesn't:
    ping www.google.com
    
    This one we want to watch what it returns for an error message. A failure to resolve the URI tends to indicate a complete loss of network connectivity upstream, while the URI resolving but the ping failing can mean that there's an issue with the pathing your requests are taking. To take a look at that, we can use the traceroute command to actually watch the hops the request takes:
    tracert www.google.com
    
    This will return a list of the nodes our request goes through on its way to the requested URI, and if it fails to move past a certain node, we can see where an outage is.

    AngelHedgie on
    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    @Tav

    I would try setting the eir F3000 to bridge mode, using the instructions here (page 37):

    https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/support/.galleries/pdfs/support-pdfs/user_manual_f3000.pdf

    I'm not familiar with this specific device, but generally speaking, changing similar modem-router combos to bridge mode turns off DNS, DHCP, etc and lets your own router handle those jobs.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • TavTav Irish Minister for DefenceRegistered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Feral wrote: »
    @Tav

    I would try setting the eir F3000 to bridge mode, using the instructions here (page 37):

    https://www.eir.ie/opencms/export/sites/support/.galleries/pdfs/support-pdfs/user_manual_f3000.pdf

    I'm not familiar with this specific device, but generally speaking, changing similar modem-router combos to bridge mode turns off DNS, DHCP, etc and lets your own router handle those jobs.

    @Feral aaaaah this is what I was missing. Just turning off AP mode on the router while disabling DHCP on the modem caused everything to shit the bed but this made it all work correctly. One or two things acting funky (i think because the router is using 10.0.0.x instead of 192.168.1.x) but nothing that I shouldn't be able to fix by unplugging and restarting things! Thanks for your help, I've cancelled the order from Amazon for the new modem.

    Tav on
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Jebus314 wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Ars Technica posted a piece discussing why Wi-Fi doesn't scale well. I recommend reading it in full, as it gets into a lot more detail as to why, but the short version is that it's very easy to overload the capacity of Wi-Fi networks, especially with streaming - which is why you want those devices wired if you can. Ars also does a rundown on several mesh router systems - they recommend the Amazon Eero system as a compromise between power and ease of use.

    Decent article.

    I'd be a little bit cautious about the phrase "Wi-Fi doesn't scale well." For home users, that's generally true.

    At a business, we scale out Wi-Fi by adding more access points and wiring each of those access points back to the central network with an Ethernet cable.

    At home, you usually have a single access point (which is inside your router). With a mesh system, you have multiple access points, but they're all communicating wirelessly. (Mesh is better than a single access point, but it's worse than having multiple access points all connected back to the network by cables.)

    It is possible for a home user to get a similar experience as a professionally-built business Wi-Fi network. If you own your own home, I highly recommend getting Ethernet wiring (CAT-6) installed, especially if the home has multiple floors or is otherwise very large.

    If you don't want to install Ethernet wiring, or you can't (because you rent), then powerline Ethernet and MoCA Ethernet are good fallback options. I'm sure you (or I, or somebody else) will describe those later in this thread.

    I'm not sure I would advocate powerline ethernet over a mesh solution. I have my in-laws setup with two access points on either side of their house, with powerline in between. Works great, except since it is opposite sides of the house the powerline has to be on different circuits, and something keeps killing the connection. So every few weeks they will complain about no internet access, and it is always because the powerline isn't communicating again.

    Caveats abound, but I feel like those two solutions are probably similar in their ease of installation/reliability (generally).

    Still trying to decide how to make that setup more reliable (switch to a wifi mesh? Some kind of a watchdog on their computer that tries to reset the powerline adapter every so often?).

    That's fair. To be totally honest, I haven't personally had good luck with powerline. However, I know a few people who really like it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    I use MoCA at my own house.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    btw, PiHole 5.0 is now available.
    sudo pihole -up
    
    ..to update

    after updating, I went to check on the new interface and noticed what I thought was an unauthorized device on my wireless. The network dashboard just gave me a MAC address and an IP and that's it. The first half of the MAC address is generally tied to a vendor which can help you track down unidentified devices. But the MAC prefix didn't match any vendors on the lists I searched. I used Pihole to look at the queries the device was making and eventually realized that it was my phone and it had been set (apparently that's a new default for Android?) to use a randomized MAC address

    VoodooV on
  • mysticjuicermysticjuicer [he/him] I'm a muscle wizard and I cast P U N C HRegistered User regular
    So, my ISP sent technicians to my house and they fully replaced the cable line in my backyard. This has solved a significant amount of my internet troubles! However, I'm still getting intermittent internet drops, just much less frequently. I always check my modem in these instances, and it shows the lights you would expect to see if everything was fine (all lights on, and the one flashing rapidly). I've found that powering off my router briefly seems to resolve this issue when it occurs. Is there some kind of router issue that could cause this behaviour, and if so, is there anything I could try to resolve it?

    narwhal wrote:
    Why am I Terran?
    My YouTube Channel! Featuring silly little Guilty Gear Strive videos and other stuff!
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Have you tried updating your router's firmware?

  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Yeah, update the firmware. I'd also check the admin settings for logs when you see those drops and see what they say. I've seen some weird shit with older routers and the logs can surface a lot of weird problems. A client had an older Netgear router confusing Netflix on Samsung TVs with a DDOS attack, for instance.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    so I still have 4 old but unused 1TB drives still lying around that were originally intended to replace the raid array currently in my computer but the project just never materialized. I would like to build a raspberry pi NAS instead.

    but obviously, the pi doesn't have SATA connectors unless you get a hat. But I'm wondering if this would be an easier/cheaper way to go if someone would be willing to check my thought process:

    1. Buy something like this. (or is it better to spend the extra money to get an enclosure that has an onboard RAID controller? They don't appear to be that much more expensive, but if someone has recommendations...
    2. even though it would connect to the pi via the single USB 3.0 cable, all four drives (sda1, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1) would be individually recognized by the pi, right>?
    3. then use mdadm to create the software raid 5 array
    4. install Samba set it up so it can be seen by windows.

    I'm not terribly concerned about speed or high performance. just wouldn't mind getting some more storage going and I'd like to finally put these drives to use.

    VoodooV on
  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    edited May 2020
    edit: I just realized this isn't chat.

    zepherin on
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    so I still have 4 old but unused 1TB drives still lying around that were originally intended to replace the raid array currently in my computer but the project just never materialized. I would like to build a raspberry pi NAS instead.

    but obviously, the pi doesn't have SATA connectors unless you get a hat. But I'm wondering if this would be an easier/cheaper way to go if someone would be willing to check my thought process:

    1. Buy something like this. (or is it better to spend the extra money to get an enclosure that has an onboard RAID controller? They don't appear to be that much more expensive, but if someone has recommendations...
    2. even though it would connect to the pi via the single USB 3.0 cable, all four drives (sda1, sdb1, sdc1, sdd1) would be individually recognized by the pi, right>?
    3. then use mdadm to create the software raid 5 array
    4. install Samba set it up so it can be seen by windows.

    I'm not terribly concerned about speed or high performance. just wouldn't mind getting some more storage going and I'd like to finally put these drives to use.

    You can likely get a used Synology enclosure for a similar price and you won't need to add the RPi (just a thought).

    I ended up installing FreeNAS on my old 4770k build, shoved some random disks I had laying around, and stuck the box in the basement.

  • IoloIolo iolo Registered User regular
    I hesitate to ask this because I've read this thread and the H&A thread. You all are building Formula 1 racers, and I'm about to ask about leasing a Honda Civic. But here goes:

    My wife's desk isn't getting the signal strength she needs when she broadcasts for work. I got this Netgear extender, putting it right by her desk, and that seemed to help in general. Other devices, including my older son streaming his school classes, seem to benefit from that extended signal. But my wife and her Macbook Air aren't getting what they need for her webcasting stuff out.

    She gave me an NYT article talking about the oh-so-timely topic of home network performance. For our situation (multi-floor house cut up by a bunch of walls and rooms), the article recommended a mesh network. The article recommended Google WiFi (now "Nest?") and Amazon Eero.

    Trying to make sense of the tens of thousands of consumer reviews of those products, it looks like those are probably fine? In this thread, I am not technically saavy, so the idea of a consumer solution optimized for ease of use is appealing. Any everyday browser/gamer/streamer things I might not be able to do with one of those mesh network products? Should I be concerned that Amzon's offering seems to sell its security as a separate, on-going subscription service?

    Second question: It sounds like to set up a mesh network, I disconnect my router and instead connect the mesh network to my modem. I'm pretty sure I have a two-in-one, though. I have Verizon FIOS, and a cable runs from my wall to the router. There's no other device that I'm aware of. Would I need to acquire a modem as well as the mesh network?

    Finally, my hub is my desktop which is wired. I'd like to stay wired. Can I still connect my desktop to the mesh network via a cable?

    Thanks in advance for any guidance you all can offer.

    Lt. Iolo's First Day
    Steam profile.
    Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    I've set up dozens of Eero and Google WiFi systems. They're both good, I settled on Eero for my home. We stream 4k on multiple screens, I work from home for now, we game, there's no real limitation other than crappy hardware on some devices (the PS4 has a notoriously bad WiFi adapter, for example). And for those things, I plug them into one of the nodes.

    For your situation, I wish I knew more about the ONT at&t uses but if I recall you are required to use their equipment. You can simply plug the Eero into the gateway and set it up there. You'll be in what's called a double NAT. Usually nothing is really effected by that, but once in a while you might have a problem with specific functions, in game chat being one that I remember in particular. In that case you'll want to put the Eero into what's called the DMZ of the at&t gateway, which can all be done in the interface for that gateway. It's not too hard, but you might need help from the provider or a smart local friend.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    FiOS is Verizon and not AT&T, unless you were answering someone else.

    @Iolo I can tell you from experience that you can disable the WiFi on the FiOS box and connect a mesh system to the router/gateway. You'll still need to use it to get to the internet but you won't need to worry about locating it where you get good wireless reception.

    When you plug the Ethernet cable between the FiOS gateway and the main wifi/mesh base station, plug into a LAN port on the base station; not the WAN port.

  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Mugsley wrote: »
    FiOS is Verizon and not AT&T, unless you were answering someone else.

    Iolo I can tell you from experience that you can disable the WiFi on the FiOS box and connect a mesh system to the router/gateway. You'll still need to use it to get to the internet but you won't need to worry about locating it where you get good wireless reception.

    When you plug the Ethernet cable between the FiOS gateway and the main wifi/mesh base station, plug into a LAN port on the base station; not the WAN port.

    No idea why I brain farted on the provider there.

    You can definitely disable the wifi on the gateway, but you'll still either need to put the box in bridge mode or DMZ a port for your own router if you want to avoid a double NAT. Whether that matters to you or not is totally your prerogative.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    Fixed an issue I was having with my phone for a while where it would just take forever to find my wifi. Once it found it, it would connect and work just fine.

    I downloaded a wifi analyzer to my phone and confirmed what I suspected after realizing how many other hotspots were around me. (Must have been a bunch of new tenants with wifi routers recently since there were only a half dozen or so other hotspots last time I checked and had no problems). Now there were well over a dozen hotspots.

    The issue was channel congestion.

    Despite my wifi router being less than 10 feet away, there was just too many other hotspots on the same channel. Went into the wifi settings on the router. The 2.4 Ghz band was already set to auto. Changed both 5 Ghz radios to use channels that were less congested and applied the changes. Everything disconnected for a little bit, but since the SSID and pwds were unchanged, everything eventually reconnected. I shut off the wifi on my phone, waited a few seconds and started it back up.

    It connected immediately.

  • teflondteflond Registered User new member
    Hi! First of all great information on this forum. I followed the instructions for setting up cloudflared DNS service on my Pi. I have an eero pro router pointing to the static address of Pi as DNS server. Everything seems to be working well...I can browse the net.Pihole appears to be resolving DNS queries and blocking Ads. However, I get errors when I run status check on cloudflare - 'unable to connect to HTTPS backendCan someone help me figure out this issue

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    teflond wrote: »
    Hi! First of all great information on this forum. I followed the instructions for setting up cloudflared DNS service on my Pi. I have an eero pro router pointing to the static address of Pi as DNS server. Everything seems to be working well...I can browse the net.Pihole appears to be resolving DNS queries and blocking Ads. However, I get errors when I run status check on cloudflare - 'unable to connect to HTTPS backendCan someone help me figure out this issue

    CloudFlare's status page is more designed for people who run cloudflared directly on their computer. I've gotten odd results when trying to connect to their status page.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    Pihole 5.1 released, a rather significant security hole (CVE-2020-14971) has been plugged as well as numerous other additions/fixes

    https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-5-1-released/35577

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    also, it does look like Cloudflare DNS did go down yesterday afternoon. I happened to be surfing when it happened (thanks for their status page btw Hedgie).

    An article was written about the outage because apparently someone thought it was attack, when in reality, it was just routing errors.

    VoodooV on
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    edited July 2020
    For whatever reason, I can't get FTL to update to 5.1 (only 5.0). All the other modules are up to date

    Mugsley on
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    Pihole 5.1 released, a rather significant security hole (CVE-2020-14971) has been plugged as well as numerous other additions/fixes

    https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/pi-hole-5-1-released/35577

    The big thing in 5.1 (big enough that I just added a disclaimer to an earlier post) is the addition of setting up local DNS records through the dashboard. Instead of having to set up configuration files to give your devices domain names, it's all done through the Dashboard interface, under the Local DNS Configuration option. Just give the domain name and the IP address, and Pi-hole will set up the record for it.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I'm not sure what I'm missing here. I apologize for the crappy screen cap
    nd3rylkg9mwg.png

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Mugsley wrote: »
    I'm not sure what I'm missing here. I apologize for the crappy screen cap
    nd3rylkg9mwg.png

    Pi-Hole has its own update command:
    sudo pihole -up
    

    AngelHedgie on
    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I did that before and it wouldn't update FTL. I'll try again tonight.

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I am so confused.
    d8j066dxibj6.jpg

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    not sure if it would make a difference, but what happens if you try
    sudo apt update
    

    instead of apt-get. Assuming that succeeds without errors, then try the the pihole update command

    I see a number of different google hits on the no_pubkey error you're getting on the repository update. non of them recent though or referring to different versions of raspian or ubuntu so I don't know if the fixes are the same

    VoodooV on
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I'll give it a shot. The other troubleshooting item I saw was to delete one of the files and have the update reinstall it. I don't remember the specific file because I don't have the relevant discussion in front of me.

    I'll try both.

    To be clear, I'm just asking for tips while I do my own checking, so please don't feel like I'm leaning on you guys to fix this.

    Mugsley on
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    tis all good. I am still very much a linux/pi newb so I'm going to be using a lot of "I think" and "maybe this could work" or "I dunno, but..."

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Ok, I finally had a chance to read what the PiHole is telling me. Basically it thinks one of the update packages is unsigned so it won't update.
    918lbggnw7pn.png

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Huzzah! Fixed!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/gs6xl3/unable_to_update_ftl/

    I had to do a bunch of GoogleFu but I got there.

  • mRahmanimRahmani DetroitRegistered User regular
    Has anybody experienced issues with Xbox and PiHole? I primarily game on the X1 and I've been getting intermittent lag spikes and server disconnects in Apex Legends, as well as complete XBL disconnects. Didn't think of it being the PiHole until I ran through the connection check thing on the Xbox and it spat out that it couldn't resolve DNS. Cut the PiHole out of the network and voila, perfect connection.

    I already have a bunch of MS stuff whitelisted in PiHole to get achievements working, so this is throwing me for a loop. It's clearly not a complete block, because the connection comes back after a few minutes. I run PiHole in an Ubuntu Hyper-V instance on my Plex server - could that be an issue?

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    I believe you can run a query on PiHole web interface to see what is being blocked on per-IP basis so you can see what requests the Xbox is making and what it's not letting through. I do have an Xbone, but I don't think I've used it since I got my PiHole up and running, I know there are some playstation analytics sites that get blocked but nothing that has interfered with me playing, but then again, I don't do any multiplayer.

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    actually it looks like they just added the feature in for v5 so that you can exclude devices from filtering. added in the Group Management section..

    https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/exclude-certain-lan-addresses-from-filtering/2014/39

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    The pi-hole blocklists can be aggressive - remember that they are maintained by people who probably don't care if your stuff works or not. I had to whitelist my Rokus to get my (paid) Hulu subscription to work, for example.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    a5ehren wrote: »
    The pi-hole blocklists can be aggressive - remember that they are maintained by people who probably don't care if your stuff works or not. I had to whitelist my Rokus to get my (paid) Hulu subscription to work, for example.

    It's the nature of the beast - it's better to have a "permission denied except where explicitly granted" model in security.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • Blameless ClericBlameless Cleric An angel made of sapphires each more flawlessly cut than the last Registered User regular
    Ok hello!! I live in a giant old house with 8 people and now that we’re all working from home our internet needs to function at a level above “kind of ok I guess”! Unfortunately that seems to be somewhat complicated by a couple of factors! First, the current set up was put together by someone who doesn’t live here any more and is not a reliable narrator so idk exactly what’s up with it! Second, Comcast (the only provider locally) thinks we are 2 houses and wants us to have 2 separate internet plans, but that is not the case and there is only one coax hookup in the house, and we cannot seem to disabuse them of this notion, so for years we have been using a WiFi extensor to get internet to the back half of the house, and that is inconsistent at Best & in one room does not work at all.

    So! What to do! I have been put in charge of this by virtue of knowing the word “coax”. We have decided that one thing we should probably do is replace the standard Comcast router with a better one??? I guess?? I dunno! What do you think?

    Currently we have

    1. The standard Comcast router
    2. These other things
    27gauml4wl9f.jpeg
    3. This guy (the extensor I think)
    ak5wvaa1ti90.jpeg

    In the following layout:
    03ymuljus44g.jpeg
    720jb3sh81cb.jpeg

    I’ve marked out where the Worst internet areas are. Also the antennae on that netgear guy have been straightened.

    Thank u for all help



    Orphane wrote: »

    one flower ring to rule them all and in the sunlightness bind them

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  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    By Standard Comcast Router, what do you mean? There are like six of the things. My guess is it's either the XB3 (a weird 2001 Obelisk looking tower with blinking lights down the front, and separate 2.4/5GHz bands), or the XB6 (looks like a rectangle with the top cut off at an angle). If it's older (the XB2 looks like the XB3, but only has one wifi light), stop here and throw that piece of shit away. Tell Comcast to replace it. Or buy your own modem!

    So all that said, I would throw every piece of equipment you have there away. You're taking your internet connection and bridging it across multiple APs and extenders, and it's just a house of cards waiting to fall apart. I'll preface this by saying I don't know your budget, and I don't know what your home's materials are (plaster vs. concrete vs. sheetrock make a huge difference). But this is my suggestion. Grab some Eeros (I'm a whore for Eero, sorry). You're looking at about $350-450 for the network layout here (the last one on the second floor might be optional, I'd try without it and buy the extra if you need it later), but it'll be pretty rock solid. One thing to note: the newer Eero units are coming out, and they are not nearly as mix and match as the current ones are. They've gone backward on the options, and I'm not thrilled about it, so buy the current revisions.
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    dic6glwie3ug.jpg

    Fear my mad Paint skills, btw.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
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