× NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
× Introducing the new Orbi 770 Series Mesh System. To learn more click here.
Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

rossburton
Aspirant

Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Basically, https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Bug-RBR20-incorrectly-uses-link-local-router-IPv6-address-as/t...

 

I turned on IPv6 and now my Orbi is telling DHCP clients that the DNS servers are 192.168.1.1 (which is good) and fe80::[...], which is not.  As discussed in the thread above, this is not useful.

 

The result of this is that depending on what server the application uses, addresses may or may not resolve.

 

Does anyone have a solution for this?  I'd file a ticket with support but I'm past my 90 days window, which frankly if I knew this was a thing before buying the Orbi would have been a deal breaker.

Model: RBR20|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Router
Message 1 of 11
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Try contacting a forum moderator to see if they can help you with reporting this:

@Blanca_O 

@Christian_R 

Message 2 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server


@rossburton wrote:

Basically, https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Bug-RBR20-incorrectly-uses-link-local-router-IPv6-address-as/t...

I turned on IPv6 and now my Orbi is telling DHCP clients that the DNS servers are 192.168.1.1 (which is good) and fe80::[...], which is not.  As discussed in the thread above, this is not useful.

The result of this is that depending on what server the application uses, addresses may or may not resolve.

Does anyone have a solution for this?


As this affects only devices with IPv6, one workaround would be to define IPv6 DNS servers on those few devices.

 

(This seems like a great opportunity to learn more about IPv6, so.....)

How would a person test that the link local IPv6 address will not resolve DNS?  The IPv4 DNS is a "local" IP address (the Orbi LAN IP).

Perhaps the Orbi accepts DNS queries on its link local interface and uses its external IPv6 address to pass queries?

My first thought is to disable IPv4 on my network interface, which would probably eliminate contact with any device or service that supports only IPv4.  So, I have shelved that idea for now.

My second thought was to use the ping -6 command.  When I do that, many URL's respond. I tried (one.one.one.one, google.com, ibm.com, att.com) and they all worked.  I tried some other URL's and got "Could not find host", which is what I would expect if those domains do not support IPv6.

 

So now I'm back wondering how to test the concept that giving devices the link local IPv6 address is wrong if it works for many domains and I am not (100%) certain that the failing domains actually support IPv6.

Message 3 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Have noticed that nslookup returns IPv6 addresses for every domain that ping -6 is successful with.

nslookup returns only IPv4 addresses for the domains that ping -6 fails on.

What would help is a list of domains that definitely have IPv6 addresses but ping -6 fails to reach.

 

I love to rag on Netgear, but so far the damning evidence eludes me.

Message 4 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

There is another experiment, which I will attempt this evening.

Capture LAN/WAN traffic.

Make IPv6 calls for domains that are not likely to be in the DNS cache.

Analyze LAN/WAN with Wireshark.

For every IPv6 DNS lookup that is addressed to the Link Local Orbi interface, look for corresponding IPv6 lookups from the Orbi IPv6 WAN interface and responses from the designated DNS servers.

It probably doesn't matter if the domains support IPv6 or not, as long as the DNS requests are made.

 

Does anyone know the telnet command to clear the local DNS cache on Orbi?

Message 5 of 11
rossburton
Aspirant

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Okay, so here's a concrete example:

On my clients (numerous macOS and Linux devices), the names servers in the DHCP responses are the link-local address of the router:

nameserver fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8
nameserver 192.168.1.1

I can use dig to query the v4 address:

$ dig @192.168.1.1 netgear.com
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @192.168.1.1 netgear.com
; (1 server found)
;; ANSWER SECTION:
netgear.com. 60 IN A 76.223.14.31
netgear.com. 60 IN A 13.248.140.194
;; Query time: 29 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.1#53(192.168.1.1)
Dig also works using the v6 address of my ISP's server:
$ dig @2001:8b0::2020 netgear.com
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @2001:8b0::2020 netgear.com
; (1 server found)
;; ANSWER SECTION:
netgear.com. 60 IN A 76.223.14.31
netgear.com. 60 IN A 13.248.140.194
;; SERVER: 2001:8b0::2020#53(2001:8b0::2020)
But using the IPv6 address that the router is telling the clients to use fails:
$ dig @fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8 netgear.com
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8 netgear.com
; (1 server found)
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
Message 6 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Thanks for the example.  (Now I get to learn about the Linux dig command - and see if there is an equivalent in Windows).

 

We seem to have a different understanding of the meaning of  "nameserver".  I take it as "send DNS queries to these servers" and they will respond to you."  They are not the ultimate resolvers for DNS.

 

netgear.com does not appear to have an IPv6 address, so attempts to resolve it will fail, whereas

www.netgear.com has a bunch of IPv6 addresses.

 

While I haul out a Linux box and load up dig, maybe you could do the same test with domains such as ibm.com and google.com that are known to have IPv6 addresses.

Message 7 of 11
rossburton
Aspirant

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

That's not how dig works.  Unless you tell it otherwise, it looks up the IPv4 (A record) for the name.

Note how when I used the v4 address of the router, or a v6 external server, it worked, but the v6 address the router gave timed out.

To demonstrate this, here's dig looking up the v6 (AAAA record) for my ISP on both the v6 address the router is giving and the real public v6 address of the ISP's DNS server.

$ dig @2001:8b0::2020 www.aa.net.uk AAAA
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.aa.net.uk.		367	IN	AAAA	2001:8b0:0:62::14
www.aa.net.uk.		367	IN	AAAA	2001:8b0:0:62::13
;; Query time: 136 msec
;; SERVER: 2001:8b0::2020#53(2001:8b0::2020)

$ dig @fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8 www.aa.net.uk AAAA
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
Message 8 of 11
rossburton
Aspirant

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

Aha. So the trick is that you need to specially handle v6 link-local addresses.  The address may be fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8 but when it is used it needs to be qualified with the interface name:

 

$ dig @fe80::2a80:88ff:feeb:3cf8%en0 www.aa.net.uk
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.aa.net.uk.		1287	IN	A	90.155.62.14
www.aa.net.uk.		1287	IN	A	90.155.62.13

And this qualification doesn't make it into /etc/resolv.conf so that's fun to deal with!

Message 9 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

I am still thrashing about.  Turns out dig for Windows is a lot easier for me to work with than (anything) on Linux.  (That business with DNS going through the loopback address and all.)

 

Here's what a dig query on  ibm.com looks like from my Orbi liink-local address:

c:\Bind>dig @fe80::a204:60ff:fe1c:239%19 ibm.com ANY

; <<>> DiG 9.16.16 <<>> @fe80::a204:60ff:fe1c:239%19 ibm.com ANY
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 39065
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 31, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ibm.com.                       IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
ibm.com.                3599    IN      MX      5 mx0b-001b2d01.pphosted.com.
ibm.com.                3599    IN      MX      5 mx0a-001b2d01.pphosted.com.
ibm.com.                19      IN      A       96.17.216.124
ibm.com.                21599   IN      SOA     asia3.akam.net. dnsadm.us.ibm.com. 1564134900 43200 7200 604800 3600
ibm.com.                19      IN      AAAA    2600:1406:3400:6a1::3831
ibm.com.                19      IN      AAAA    2600:1406:3400:69d::3831
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "amazonses:79ShwQazteb+WkCt8e297sAC2mwZVRditsrzaoxiHjU="
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "00D3h000004YkeYEAS"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "00d50000000c9mweay"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "yandex-verification: 5f458b477256c50c"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "00d00000000hedieay"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "40a21f5affe343c6b37e0a5af80dcd93"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "Dynatrace-site-verification=76b6b299-fe43-4f31-889b-a8a467193478__8q74sg9dg5udjppn95utrb8bct"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "v=spf1 ip4:148.163.158.5 ip4:148.163.156.1 ip4:67.231.145.127 ip4:67.231.153.87 ip4:168.245.101.145 mx a:zgateway.zuora.com include:_spf.google.com ~all"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "atlassian-domain-verification=WAjTH82C5Zx475WLKAA2nrdlsoA/kN0ej9igrLrED4h15KMHPOm+A5H3GndKAxDC"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "google-site-verification=Jck8mLbYYfCnrmi_nRy4MG2fbUN3UGhC29KdspGLd9Y"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "adobe-idp-site-verification=5f8adca7-512f-44e1-a5b2-b62c5e3763f2"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "apple-domain-verification=M3o953J0rN1B0P2a"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "00df40000004784eaa"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "google-site-verification=tzdngH5fWH-k8uQoDVovOFJQZTwaGtDOP6S2cQlOvCs"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "_github-challenge-ibm.ibm.com=2613e984bc"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "facebook-domain-verification=kyuxs3tdqtyh9rbqa3szkq3k9i2bbs"
ibm.com.                599     IN      TXT     "MS=ms61389031"
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      usw2.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      asia3.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      eur2.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      usc3.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      ns1-206.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      eur5.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      ns1-99.akam.net.
ibm.com.                21599   IN      NS      usc2.akam.net.

;; Query time: 134 msec
;; SERVER: fe80::a204:60ff:fe1c:239%19#53(fe80::a204:60ff:fe1c:239%19)
;; WHEN: Sun May 30 15:21:59 Pacific Daylight Time 2021
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 1497

 

I am still of the opinion that Orbi giving out its IPv4 and IPv6 link local addresses as DNS servers "works".

I am also of the opinion that IPv6 is incredibly complicated and confusing and that a tremendous portion of the internet is not IPv6 friendly.

 

 

Message 10 of 11
CrimpOn
Guru

Re: Link-local used for IPv6 DNS server

An example of my confusion is the way web browsers totally manipulate the process.

ford.com and honda.com do not have IPv6 addresses. (www.ford.com has IPv6 but www.honda.com does not).

 

Open a web browser to http://ford.com (not https and not www.ford.com)  What does the browser produce?  https://www.ford.com

 

And.... now that I find IPv6 addresses for URL's like www.ford.com, I have yet to get a browser to open the web site using IPv6.

 

For me, networking continues to be a humbling experience.

Message 11 of 11
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 10 replies
  • 5759 views
  • 2 kudos
  • 3 in conversation
Announcements

Orbi 770 Series