Month: April 2024

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Learning OPNsense: DNS Adblocking

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with another short update my progress with my OPNsense firewall. Let’s get started.

I have done a substantial amount of work with DNS on my home network, but as noted in a previous post, it’s sub-optimal to exclusively manipulate your Domain Name System access from a power-hungry desktop when you sometimes have to ration electricity in your Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). I like PiHole’s web interface with all its fancy, moving graphs and charts, but our new firewall, Cerberus, can replicate the functionality I need.

I primarily use PiHole for DNS ad blocking, but I also explicitly blacklist a few URL’s while hosting local DNS records for servers on my Local Area Network (LAN), though the later is a work in progress.

OPNsense→Services→Unbound DNS→Blocklist→Type of DNSBL offers a drop-down checkbox menu of block lists. This is in contrast to PiHole→Adlists, which lets you import lists from arbitrary sources (edit the day after posting: OPNsense Unbound does have a URLs of Blocklists field). Either way, it should go without saying that sites and ads only need to be blocked once; it will only slow your DNS service down if given a bunch of redundant lists. From what I remember installing OISD Big onto PiHole, they aggregate several of these lists and remove the duplicates. PiHole also picked up a list named StephenBlack with a comment, “Migrated from /etc/pihole/adlists.list.” It sounds like a system default, but in any case, I found it had stuff not on OISD Big. OPNsense Unbound has the option for it, so it got migrated.

Migrating singled-out blacklist items was as simple as adding each entry to a comma-separated list (where PiHole wants separate entries). I’m going to wait on migrating my LAN domain names though. I believe I found the place to do it, but ButtonMash isn’t running Caddy to recognize subdomain requests right now.

One last step was to get into the red gaming router we’ve been using and point its DNS at Cerberus the Firewall. I then pointed its secondary DNS alternative at ButonMash.

To summarize, we should have the exact same protection as before on a smaller battery footprint and within the firewall’s default attack surface to boot!

Encrypted DNS

One of my eventual goals is to have my own recursive DNS server, which seeks out an a URL’s authoritative DNS record if it doesn’t have it cached. This will increase privacy, but I haven’t figured it out at a production grade yet. Instead, I looked up the best free and privacy respecting DNS, and so far as I can tell, that’s Cloudflare at 1.1.1.1.

From OPNsense, it wasn’t much more trouble to encrypt using DNS over TLS. I would prefer DNS over HTTPS, does the same thing but camouflages DNS requests as normal web traffic. For now, I’m assuming Unbound can’t do this and working properly. Please tell me if I’m wrong.

Takeaway

It’s slow going, but I am moving into Cerberus. While looking around, I found a module for NUT (Network UPS Tools), a utility for shutting down computers gracefully as their UPS runs down. I wanted to get it working, and for a moment after a reboot I did, but for reasons beyond me besides the driver on BSD not agreeing the best with CyberPower UPS systems, I’m at a loss. At this point, I am thinking to install a small Linux box to do the job at a future date, even though that will be yet another thing on the UPS.

Final Question

From above: Do you know of a way for OPNsense’s Unbound module to run DNS over HTTPS? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below or on my Socials!

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Hardware Firewall Up!

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let’s get started!

I left off last week having made attempts on four separate nights trying to get the hardware firewall online in a production context. When I tested it between my upstairs workstation and its OpenWRT+Raspberry Pi router/Wi-Fi adapter, it worked fine. Put it back in production between our ISP’s gateway and our existing gaming router, and no one gets Internet.

The solution: pull the gateway’s plug for 30 seconds and let it reboot. Internet solved.

Longer explanation: my ISP box is in some sort of bridge mode, where it’s supposed to pass the external IP address to a single device (usually a router, but can be a normal computer). In this mode, it didn’t like this device getting swapped out – possibly as a security measure. It still reserves the address 10.0.0.1 as itself through out the network, a behavior I took to be half-bridge mode, but my surprise this week while fiddling with settings was that it did in-fact pass on the external address.

Takeaway

I expected the struggle to continue a lot longer, but I actually figured it out pretty quickly once I started researching the symptoms online. I explored the settings a bit more. I’d like to move the functions of PiHole over, but the web interface has a drop-down menu for block lists instead of a text box. I’ll look into it another time. Instead, I spent a good chunk of the week weeding grass and getting a sunburn.

Final Question

Have you ever found you were rebooting the wrong thing? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below or on my Socials!

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Unboxing: Hardware Firewall (Protectli Vault)

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I have on my desk between my keyboard and monitors a new Protectli Vault running OPNsense. Let’s get started.

After at least a couple years tentatively researching hardware firewalls, it’s here. Let me tell you: it’s both a relief and a bit of pressure. I’m glad I’m no longer starting from scratch over and over again, but now I feel time pressure to deploy it despite my parents’ assurance that it’s much better to go at a responsible pace. And unless you’re a full time network specialist, that pace is longer than a week.

My Current Network and Its Weaknesses

At present, my home network starts with a box owned and controlled by my service provider. This gateway feeds into a gaming router before going out to a couple switches and Wi-Fi. One of my desktops has OpenWRT on a Raspberry Pi 4. ButtonMash, my home server, runs Podman containers for Vaultwarden (Password vault storage) and PiHole (DNS ad blocking). We have a Network Attached Storage by the hostname of GoldenOakLibry. Everything minus a couple workstations has battery backup in case the lights go out.

And when the lights do go out, the first big flaw comes out. While the network closet may last several hours, Power-hungry ButtonMash and GoldenOakLibry chew through their shared battery in around half an hour before I added ButtonMash’s twin, Joystick, as a development platform. When ButtonMash goes down, the network loses DNS so we can’t resolve URL’s.

Additionally, I’d like to move to a non-default set of internal IP addresses, like 10.59.102.X instead of 10.0.0.X or 192.168.0.X. While computers getting automatic IP’s over DHCP will essentially take care of themselves, I have invested quite a bit of time into static IP’s on NFS (Network File System), and when I move GoldenOakLibry’s IP, I’ll need to adjust the automounts for all systems accessing it, and that’s just a pain. I want to learn how a home domain works.

I also have a number of network-related projects I’ve done research for, but burned out on before solving. From memory, here’s a checklist of partial/incomplete/need-to-redo projects:

  • Feline Observation Pi (First prototype tested, needs overhaul)
  • Website for family photo archive (Needs hardware firewall, rootless Podman/NFS, booru/wiki)
  • Nextcloud (Early prototype successful, needs rootless Podman/NFS before production)
  • Beowulf cluster (Early research)
  • Rootless Podman/NFS (Heard from a developer and solution may not exist [yet])
  • UPS battery monitoring/shutdown before power failure (Research phase)
  • Caddy (First prototype in production, needs overhaul)
  • Unbound (Incomplete prototype)
  • Reverse VPN [mobile traffic] (Need Hardware Firewall)
  • Podman systemctl –user (In production, but I cannot reproduce at will)
  • Domain/Domain Controller (Background research incomplete)

Keep in mind that the notes on each item suggesting a direction are just the direction I’m leaning in at the moment without reflecting the new hardware. Replacing GoldenOakLibry with a server beefy enough to handle running Podman would solve my current need for rootless Podman/NFS. I may find a replacement for Caddy that also works as a Domain Controller. Does Caddy even do that? Let me check… Inconclusive; probably not. I don’t know enough about what to look for in a Domain Controller besides the name. Most of my time focused on researching Demilitarized Zones.

Demilitarized Zone and Roadmapping

Originally, I had a goal of deploying this new firewall/router configured with a demilitarized zone network structure. With hardware in hand, I learned a lot! But as I learned, I realized I needed to learn that much more to do the job right. A DMZ is basically a low security area of your network for serving stuff over an untrusted network (usually the wide open Internet) while protecting your Local Area Network. Ideally your LAN would have a separate physical router in case the one servicing the DMZ is ever compromised, but a homelab environment should be a small enough target that branching off from a single hardened router should be fine. My trouble is that I can’t fully tell where to put what.

I already know I want to move PiHole, Unbound, and similar projects related to internet traffic, and other projects I want lasting a bit longer into power outages onto the new router. OPNsense is a distribution of BSD and not Linux, so I expect I will need to look into a Linux Virtual Machine if BSD-based containers aren’t available. The gaming router I’m using now will still be our Wi-Fi access point, but I’d prefer to retire it from DHCP duty.

ButtonMash and Joystick are my enigma. I had plans of clustering them, but I may need one in the DMZ and one on the LAN. GoldenOakLibry belongs on the LAN so far as I can tell – as do all workstations.

Takeaway

There will be more thought to give it another week. I went ahead and hooked it up in place, but it didn’t work despite how I had previously had it working between my upstairs workstation and its rPi router. I’ve reverted the setup to how it was before, and I’ll need to take a closer look and do some further testing.

Final Question

What was the last piece of tech you unboxed?

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Roadmapping Switching to Linux Phones

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am dusting off my studies of Android in response to happenings around the family. Let’s get started.

Phones and Privacy

This round started with my father’s phone screen burning out. He got it repaired, but my sister’s phone screen was cracked, and I ended up giving her my otherwise unused one of the same model.

Consumer privacy has been an increasingly important question as computers integrate more tightly with our everyday lives. We now live in a time and place where most everyone old enough to read is coerced by convenience into loading themselves down with every tracker known to Man unless restrained by applicable law. And this issue will only continue to grow as technologies such as consumer VR and clinically installable neural interfaces mature and facilitate the collection of ever more intimate personal data. Legislation isn’t keeping up, but a minority of people unsatisfied with this status quo are developing open source alternatives that either let end-users mitigate abuse of technology by obfuscating their data or preventing its collection entirely.

My goal is to one day have the family on Linux phones. OK, what are the main obstacles? From previous research, cell network compatibility has been big, but support from our current carrier is nil the moment I read off my prototype PinePhone’s IMEI number (an individual cell modem identifier). Additional general knowledge research turned up that banking apps have a tendency to really hate working on Android devices without Google’s seal of approval.

Phone Carriers

Most major cell companies will prefer you buy a phone on credit that’s been locked to their network for a couple years. Per contract, you don’t get admin privileges until it’s paid off and unlocked – assuming you still have a unit at the end. Even if a service has a bring-your-own-phone program, it may be limited to a short list of models, even if your unapproved unit is compatible with the wireless technology[ies] their network is built on (which I believe was the case last time we switched carriers). Even then, a phone may only be compatible between any combination of calls, texting, data, or other wireless functionalities.

Complicating the matter for me specifically, I cannot even comfortably look at pictures where a part of the screen has been sacrificed for a camera “island” per the modern trend. I need a phone with like goodies in the bezel where they belong. After doing some research, I narrowed my choices down to the Librem 5 and the PinePhone Pro. General research on each for this week turned up year-old criticism about the American made Librem 5 refunds to weigh against the PinePhone being assembled in China like most other personal devices. I looked up each and found a compatibility chart for each and made a better informed recommendation to my parents for when we switch carriers.

Android On Linux

One high priority feature my parents are after in their phones is mobile deposit. That’s not happening on a week’s notice, even if I had a phone already to try it on. From a software point of view though, a Linux desktop is essentially identical to a Linux phone minus a cellular modem, SIM card, and miscellaneous other peripherals.

Many tools exist specifically to run Android apps on desktop. This week, I explored running BlissOS custom ROM on QEMU/KVM. QEMU and KVM took a while to straighten out, so I might be mistaken here, but QEMU is an emulator/hypervisor and KVM is a Linux kernel module for virtualization QEMU can optionally use for direct access to hardware for improved performance. Along the way, I was recommended in the direction of using an AMD graphics card instead of Nvidia. That meant using Derpy Chips, a computer from before Intel came up with the special circuitry needed for this kind of virtualization…

…Well, it looks like I’ve been carrying some bad info around, because this virtualization circuitry has been around for a lot longer than I thought! I navigated Derpy’s BIOS (Yeah, I know I’ve made a stink about them being UEFI and not BIOS, but they’re labeled BIOS despite being UEFI.) to turn on virtualization and and I got a proof of concept going. I tried using its command line installer, but couldn’t figure out how to work anything related to the hard drive. I could consistently get to –I assume– a live session run directly off the disk image. I successfully accessed the Internet from within the VM, but installing apps or even trying to make an entry on the file system remains an unsolved issue. Nevertheless: this is major progress.

Takeaway

Android at its core was made open source by Google to catch up to the iPhone. Now that it’s ahead, they’ve had seasons of moving as much of the definitive experience out of the public eye, but that’s not kept people from making custom ROM’s. While my next major goal in this project is to install an app, the another blockade on my developing road map is SafetyNet. When I get there, I’ll want to look up Magisk and Shamiko, two names I came across pertaining to the Android custom ROM community.

I’ll also note that I still have additional options to try, like something based on containerization. While writing this up, I took a second look at WayDroid, which I dismissed assuming it wouldn’t work in an X11 environment, and it just might.

Final Question

Do you have any experience with Linux phones? I would be most interested in hearing from you in the comments below or on my Socials!

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A Let’s Player I am Not

Good Morning and Happy Easter/April Fool’s from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am salvaging an attempted Let’s Play I tried making for Minetest Exile. Let’s get started!

Minetest is an open source block game engine and Exile among the top games on that engine. In this game created by Dokimi and continued by Mantar, you play as an exile banished from a post-postapocalyptic Iron Age civilization to the ruined land of the ancients for crimes you likely didn’t commit. When you lose a character to the wasteland, you will respawn as a fresh exile with a distinct backstory.

Suffice it to say Exile has a difficult learning curve. A .pdf tutorial exists by the original creator, Dokimi, but I found it very outdated two (I think) years ago. I tried making my own tutorial in the same style, but I found it too exhausting to switch between gameplay and organizing my thoughts, so I put the project down and all but forgot about it without publishing anything.

This week, I was inspired to try recording my gameplay with live commentary. I installed OBS from the repository and set it up for recording. It took me a while to get a good mix between my voice and game sounds, but I eventually got something halfway decent.

Gameplay wise, I got a decently lucky start with finding a good food to farm. Thanks to new clothing items since I last played, I wasn’t too bad off despite sub-optimal fiber sources previously being a practical requirement for keeping a critter alive while starting from scratch. I found a spot for a year one farm, but had to make a seepage pit for water to drink, which eventually gave me a stomach bug that crashed my game. I gave up on the Let’s Play and reported the bug. As of writing this on Friday afternoon, the bug has already been addressed. My save was still corrupted though, so I doubt I’ll be committing to a let’s play anytime soon.

Takeaway

Taking cumulative lessons from this project’s two attempts so far, I believe the wisest course of action is to record footage playing a season at a time while taking verbal notes, then grab screenshots from the video and write commentary on the highlights.

Final Question

Have you ever tried making a Let’s Play? How did it go?

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