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    Periodic since 2.2 pages load blank, certs invalid

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • S
      saywhat
      last edited by

      We have had the exact same issue here in UK. We use BT as the ISP/

      Same lolcat 3rd party self signed cert appearing for many sites, all DNS being redirected to 195.22.26.248 which shows as being a malicious IP in Portugal, used for lots of spammy domains.

      Interestingly, we had Google DNS set on pfsense. When I changed this to OpenDNS the problem immediately went away, pings began to return correct IPs again etc.

      I know Google DNS was hijacked before, so that is a possibility, but I would have thought an attack such as that would have hit the news on twitter by now.

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      • T
        Trel
        last edited by

        @saywhat:

        We have had the exact same issue here in UK. We use BT as the ISP/

        Same lolcat 3rd party self signed cert appearing for many sites, all DNS being redirected to 195.22.26.248 which shows as being a malicious IP in Portugal, used for lots of spammy domains.

        Interestingly, we had Google DNS set on pfsense. When I changed this to OpenDNS the problem immediately went away, pings began to return correct IPs again etc.

        I know Google DNS was hijacked before, so that is a possibility, but I would have thought an attack such as that would have hit the news on twitter by now.

        Now THAT actually gives me something to go on.

        My DNS servers are
        4.2.2.2
        8.8.8.8
        4.2.2.1
        8.8.4.4

        The 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 being Google DNS.
        Are those the ones you have configured?

        EDIT: and that could also explain how releasing and renewing the WAN connection fixes it.  If it loses connection with 4.2.2.2 and goes to Google's 8.8.8.8 and that's the problem, releasing/renewing might re-establish contact with 4.2.2.2.

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        • S
          saywhat
          last edited by

          We were using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

          Changed them over to opendns and machines responded almost immediately

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          • T
            Trel
            last edited by

            @saywhat:

            We were using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

            Changed them over to opendns and machines responded almost immediately

            That looks like it has a good chance at being the cause then.
            I'm going to remove those from my list and just keep the Level3 ones (4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2) and see if it ever happens again.

            That might also explain why it didn't happen until right after the 2.2 upgrade if dnsmasq had a higher tolerance before falling over to the secondary DNS server than unbound does.

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            • P
              Pakken
              last edited by

              God, and I thought I was the only one having this problem since I came up reading this thread.

              Any news about that? Same invalid cert, same google dns.
              Spent the last night trying to figure out what the he** could have happened.

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              • T
                Trel
                last edited by

                @Pakken:

                God, and I thought I was the only one having this problem since I came up reading this thread.

                Any news about that? Same invalid cert, same google dns.
                Spent the last night trying to figure out what the he** could have happened.

                Other than us three, I haven't found anyone who reported it anywhere but here.

                But it's way too coincidental that three people got the same symptoms and had the same dns.

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                • K
                  kejianshi
                  last edited by

                  Me also - Thats main reason I turned off forwarder and turned on unbound on one of my systems.
                  The kids were reporting same exact issues as you…

                  Unbound with DNSSEC is technically slower than a forwarder but it seems faster in actual use and the kids report its solid.
                  I'm also using it over the VPN for my private use.

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                  • D
                    doktornotor Banned
                    last edited by

                    NSA testing some new (broken) toys? :D

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                    • K
                      kejianshi
                      last edited by

                      I will just say I like unbound and leave it at that…    (-;

                      Unbound + VPN = my tinfoil hat

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                      • T
                        Trel
                        last edited by

                        I just had this happen with level3 DNS (4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2) as the DNS servers.  I removed them leaving ONLY OpenDNS and it immediately started resolving correctly again.

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                        • K
                          kejianshi
                          last edited by

                          A lack of resolution could simply be a network error.  I was really only seeing issue with HTTPS sites.
                          Cert errors just smell like MITM to me.

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                          • T
                            Trel
                            last edited by

                            @kejianshi:

                            A lack of resolution could simply be a network error.  I was really only seeing issue with HTTPS sites.
                            Cert errors just smell like MITM to me.

                            It's not a lack of resolution.  It IS resolving to a different IP.

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                            • K
                              kejianshi
                              last edited by

                              I'm certain no one would use DNS resolution to effect a MITM attack.  (You are just paranoid)™

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                              • C
                                cmb
                                last edited by

                                @kejianshi:

                                I'm certain no one would use DNS resolution to effect a MITM attack.

                                That's actually pretty common, there's a variety of malware that will do just that to individual PCs, and sometimes to exploit routers and change their DNS servers so it impacts all LAN hosts. A variety of consumer-grade routers have been susceptible to such attacks.

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                                • C
                                  cmb
                                  last edited by

                                  @Trel:

                                  I should mention though, that when I release/renew the WAN interface, I'm not getting a new IP.  I'm getting the same one.  Breaking the connection seems to be what fixes it.

                                  After the further details later in the thread, I think why that has an impact is because it's triggering a DNS cache flush in the DNS forwarder, so the poisoned replies are no longer there.

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                                  • K
                                    kejianshi
                                    last edited by

                                    haha - Yeah.  I know.  My sarcasm wasn't obvious enough?  I'll try harder.

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                                    • C
                                      cmb
                                      last edited by

                                      @kejianshi:

                                      haha - Yeah.  I know.  My sarcasm wasn't obvious enough?  I'll try harder.

                                      Oh, the sarcasm font on here must be broken, sorry. :)

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                                      • T
                                        Trel
                                        last edited by

                                        @cmb:

                                        @Trel:

                                        I should mention though, that when I release/renew the WAN interface, I'm not getting a new IP.  I'm getting the same one.  Breaking the connection seems to be what fixes it.

                                        After the further details later in the thread, I think why that has an impact is because it's triggering a DNS cache flush in the DNS forwarder, so the poisoned replies are no longer there.

                                        I actually just asked about this here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=87743.0

                                        Is that a possible scenario, because if so I have a good idea of what might be doing it then.

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                                        • K
                                          kejianshi
                                          last edited by

                                          My problem was originating outside the house between the ONT and the FIOS and or google DNS servers…
                                          Its nothing inside the network that was causing it, but hopefully its mitigated now.

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                                          • T
                                            Trel
                                            last edited by

                                            @kejianshi:

                                            This problem is originating outside the house between the ONT and the FIOS and or google DNS servers…
                                            Its nothing inside the network that was causing it, but hopefully its mitigated now.

                                            If I can verify that pfsense itself is seeing the incorrect IPs for DNS lookups, there's definitely nothing internal that could be causing that at all?

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