Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

ctrl.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 245 posts

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#141

Post by cannam »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #140
zoe1337 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powerline Ethernet might be a solution for the cable problem. I'm thinking of connecting the extra AP(s) through Powerline Ethernet to the router if there is no copper Ethernet available.

Powerline Ethernet is not really a good solution either. If you don't use your phone jacks, take the cover off one and check if it's actually using Cat5 or greater. You can then use those for network if you replace the connectors.

> Powerline Ethernet is not really a good solution either.

Why is that?

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#142

Post by ksec »

aneidon wrote: post #89
ksec wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Airport is probably the best router I have ever owned. Not the fastest, but extremely Stable, based on NetBSD and from a company that makes money on my hardware rather then my Data. I really hope they will have an 802.11ax version once they iron out all the crap that is going on in there.

hate to break it to you: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/21/apple-reportedly-stops-develo...

1. Mark Gurman, ever since he started working in Bloomberg his source or material has been either late or inaccurate.

2. The correct report was Router team folded into Apple TV team. Sounds like Apple TV adding router function to me.

3. Apple is still selling Airport, and stocks level are still very healthy. i.e No signs or discontinue.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#143

Post by vlan0 »

pjc50 wrote: post #108
w0utert wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. Or better yet, buy a bunch of Ubiqity UniFi's, which were specifically made for this purpose and should provide the most seamless and efficient way to blanket your house in Wifi (provided you already have cabling to the access points). They are not cheap, but al…

UniFi devices are a bit unusual as wireless APs: not only do they not act as a DHCP server, they require you to have one somewhere else on the network. Generally your uplink router will do this, but it surprised me when I wanted to use one as a standalone AP.

That's because you're comparing consumer grade all-in-one routers to a more Enterprise worthy AP.

Consumer grade gear is made to be easy and "just work".

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#144

Post by discreditable »

zoe1337 wrote: post #116
herpderperator wrote: post #59

Don't bother with repeaters. Get normal access points, and install several of them if you need to disperse the range around a large area/building/complex. If the SSID and security passphrases match, clients will roam seamlessly between the different APs. I suspect the reason people buy repeaters is that they don't realise that this is possible, or they don't want additional cabling. Repeaters add latency and I can't…

Powerline Ethernet might be a solution for the cable problem. I'm thinking of connecting the extra AP(s) through Powerline Ethernet to the router if there is no copper Ethernet available.

This might be the wrong thread to recommend it, but I've had good luck with TP-Link's Powerline Ethernet adapters. I switched to them from WiFi for my living room TV/Gaming/Streaming setup. I'm in a high interference wireless environment due to neighbor density (even in 5Ghz) and the TP-Link devices reliably push over 500mbps.

A downside of powerline ethernet devices is they use your house wiring as a hub-style network. While I think some support a form of MIMO, the more devices you have the worse performance will be. The TP-Links I have sport QoS, but I've not messed with it.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#145

Post by mort96 »

johnbellone wrote: post #131
mort96 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue with Apple routers is that you _need_ an Apple device to do anything with them. I have an AirPort Extreme, and while I'm not opposed to having Apple devices, I also don't exclusively buy from them, but rather what I deem to be the best product for my purposes at the time of purchase. That currently means an iPhone, an iPad, and a Dell laptop running Linux, but has in the past included both Apple lapt…

I can’t attest to how well it works, but the Airport Utility is available on Windows. This obviously doesn’t help you if you are looking to manage using an Android or Chrome device.

I have used that a tiny bit in the past (many years ago), and while not great, it works. However, it's abandoned, with the most recent version being released in 2012, and only officially supports Windows 7.

Besides, the only system I have with Windows is my gaming desktop, and that's only runnin Windows because there's a couple of games I play which don't support Linux. My laptop runs Linux, and while it's not running Overwatch, my gaming desktop is running Linux.

I think a more likely solution is to just keep an iOS device around while router is in use.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#146

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dspillett wrote: post #123
Xylakant wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I count single digit mentions in 1669 days that procotor is registered on HN. That would be lousy self promotion. I believe that proctor genuinely believes he built something useful and wants to share it. The snark in jlgaddis post rubs me the wrong way.

> That would be lousy self promotion. But still self-promotion if people want to be dogmatic about it. Some people, and some discussion forums, have an absolutely zero tolerance attitude to self-promotion. I have no issue with it if: * It isn't almost all that the account is for (caveat: personally I don't care enough in this case to have checked the account's comment history), i.e. the person contributes usefully to…

I shared a link to my blog the other day, we had a discussion on p2p internet and I recalled Opera Unite and linked a page I wrote about it some time ago.

That page has affiliate links, IIRC, which you probably block with ublock/adaware, should I not have shared it?

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#147

Post by cheald »

tambourine_man wrote: post #135
ktta wrote: post #9

PSA Anyone with commodity routers, repeaters, etc. please check out LEDE project https://lede-project.org . Check if your device has support here - https://lede-project.org/toh/start LEDE firmware is amazing. You will be able to do a lot more with your router and they have quick security fixes. The recent krack vulnerability was fixed within 2 days after the announcement.

Anyone care to explain the pro/cons of DD-WRT vs Tomato vs OpenWRT vs LEDE vs etc?

LEDE is basically an OpenWRT fork which is being actively developed. The biggest draw is that it's actively developed, and managed in a Linux-style package manager setup, rather than monolithic baked firmwares that you have to flash wholesale. Patching against things like KRACK was as simple as just invoking the package manager.

DD-WRT and Tomato are both old tried-and-true alternatives to vendor firmwares, and they require less tinkering to get into the state that you want, but they both tend to have weird crufty edge cases that never get properly fixed and don't seem to have any clear direction or leadership - they are both a hodgepodge of forks that you have to spend time digging through hundred-page forum threads to find information about. Development schedules are sporadic, and you often end up with dozens of potential builds in varying states of beta and testing which fix this or that but break this or that other thing. When they work, they're great, but my experience with LEDE has been consistently superior than my experience with DD-WRT or Tomato.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#148

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Xylakant wrote: post #137
dspillett wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would be lousy self promotion. But still self-promotion if people want to be dogmatic about it. Some people, and some discussion forums, have an absolutely zero tolerance attitude to self-promotion. I have no issue with it if: * It isn't almost all that the account is for (caveat: personally I don't care enough in this case to have checked the account's comment history), i.e. the person contributes usefully to…

> But still self-promotion if people want to be dogmatic about it. If you want to be dogmatic about it, then no links to your bio, no mention of the good work you do, no link to a company that employs or employed you, no link to your blog, ...

Make sure you use a different username, and keep yourself anonymous!

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#149

Post by sondr3 »

philjohn wrote: post #112
stordoff wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, it can be worth checking beyond whether or not your device is _supported_. I had DD-WRT running on an ASUS RT-AC68U for a while, and ended up switching back to a fork of the official firmware (Asuswrt-Merlin) for better performance once I upgraded to a >100Mbps WAN connection (IIRC it was something to do with hardware-accelerated NAT).

There's a patch to enable Qualcomm FastPath in LEDE, this offloads simpler TCP and UDP traffic from the Kernel stack and gets me 960Mbps LAN to WAN on a Netgear R7800.

Where can I find this patch? I'm on one of the ASUS routers but want to try out LEDE, but don't want reduced throughput.

Re: TP-Link firmware sends six DNS requests and one NTP query every 5 seconds

#150

Post by mort96 »

cleeus wrote: post #74
alpb wrote: post #4

My most recent frustration with TP-LINK was they they DO NOT provide their firmware updates over HTTPS. They do not provide checksums for their firmware files either. (When I asked for these things, their support weren't helpful on Twitter.) So you're expected to download some unsigned binary over an untrusted connection and trust that with all your traffic. Definitely not buying TP-LINK next time. Good to know this…

I consider that a feature ;) TP-Link plastic routers have nice cheap hardware and they make it really easy for you to flash it with LEDE/OpenWRT.

Well, it's not a feature. You can both provide official firmware over HTTPS (or provide checksums for them, or both), and let people flash custom firmware, at the same time.
Post reply on HN