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    allowing roku discovery across VLANs

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved L2/Switching/VLANs
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    • ?
      A Former User
      last edited by

      Humans. :) We all know that hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer is bad. We all think that just before we say "hey, do you know where I left my hammer?"

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      • J
        jaaasshh
        last edited by

        Guys - that other post clearly covered that "poking holes is bad". If that's all you have to contribute can you just go respond over there? I got that bit.

        @johnpoz It seems that I disagree that "roku's only have to be discovered once. If I kill the roku app, it loses connection to a previously connected device. So any time my phone restarts I have to switch networks, re-discover it, then switch back. I don't want to do that. I'd also have to do that with other phones on my network and any guests that show up that want to stream content to my roku.

        ? johnpozJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ?
          A Former User @jaaasshh
          last edited by A Former User

          @jaaasshh Absolutely. You're going to need udpbroadcastrelay or pimd. I was not successful getting pimd to work for Sonos (also uses SSDP) and udpbroadcastrelay worked very well. YMMV. See my post above and adjust the interfaces as needed.

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          • JKnottJ
            JKnott @jaaasshh
            last edited by

            @jaaasshh

            Read up on what Bonjour does. Avahi does similar. I have not seen passing through a router mentioned anywhere as that's not what they do.

            Consider the multicast addresses used. They are in a special block, which can never be used as a host address. This means a router does not know what to do with it. The exception is when some device on the LAN side of a router wants to subscribe to that multicast. It then asks the router to act on it's behalf and then when a packet comes from the source, then it will pass it on to the local LAN. This will happen with as many routers as necessary, to get the packets from the source to the eventual requesting host.

            PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
            i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
            UniFi AC-Lite access point

            I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

            ? J 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ?
              A Former User @JKnott
              last edited by

              @JKnott Of course. Broadcast/Multicast traffic isn't going anywhere specific. Where would you route it? What is being done is the Broadcast/Multicast traffic on one L2 network is being copied to another. Passing through the router (pfsense) or not is semantic hair splitting. This can be done (arguably better done) on your switch, if at all.

              Raffi_R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • J
                jaaasshh @JKnott
                last edited by

                @JKnott Thanks for those links. My interpretation of that (watch out world) is that Bonjour is running on my various Apple devices, but those are all confined to the subnet they are on. So, they have no ability to listen on my IOT VLAN and rebroadcast on the opposing side.

                Avahi is different given that it is running on pfsense, bound to both networks which allows it to listen on both and rebroadcast on both. That, to me, essentially bypasses pfsense (for better or worse) which otherwise wouldn't rebroadcast those messages, or as you put it, wouldn't know what to do with it.

                So all that said, I guess I'm still not connecting the dots as to what "passing through the router" has to do with any of this. Avahi is running, it's supposed to be doing that job instead of the router. No?

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                • johnpozJ
                  johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @jaaasshh
                  last edited by

                  @jaaasshh said in allowing roku discovery across VLANs:

                  So any time my phone restarts I have to switch networks

                  So in line with OMG I have to click a button... F security - its not convenient enough ;)

                  You want a simple solution for your guest to control your rokus - let them connect to your roku vlan.. I have cards printed out with my different wireless vlans.. That guest could connect too.. Normally they connect to just guest. But if I wanted them to stream something to my rokus - which for the life of me could never see wanting to do in the first place ;)

                  But if did - I would hand them the roku QR code card.. They couldn't type in the PSK anyway.. Its more than 3 characters and that is just too much work ;)

                  I'm with @jwj users asking for help with how to best line up the hammer to do the most damage as they strike themselves not in the thumb but in the head..

                  An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                  If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                  Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                  SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

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                  • ?
                    A Former User @jaaasshh
                    last edited by

                    @jaaasshh avahi is for mDNS/Bonjour. Not SSDP. As I have said you need to look elsewhere.

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                    • Raffi_R
                      Raffi_ @A Former User
                      last edited by

                      @jwj said in allowing roku discovery across VLANs:

                      This can be done (arguably better done) on your switch, if at all.

                      I'm curious about this. I never found a solution to my Youtube discovery issue across VLANs. How would it be done on the switch? Is that what IGMP snooping on a switch does?

                      ? JKnottJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        A Former User @Raffi_
                        last edited by A Former User

                        @Raffi_ Partly. Then you need to setup what to do with the traffic you are snooping. Depends on the switch. My CISCO Small Business (SG-220 50P) has a terrible interface and garbage documentation. That's why I haven't done it yet. I really should do it soon.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • JKnottJ
                          JKnott @Raffi_
                          last edited by

                          @Raffi_ said in allowing roku discovery across VLANs:

                          Is that what IGMP snooping on a switch does?

                          Yep, or a router. Here's what Wikipedia says:

                          "The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is a communications protocol used by hosts and adjacent routers on IPv4 networks to establish multicast group memberships. IGMP is an integral part of IP multicast and allows the network to direct multicast transmissions only to hosts that have requested them."

                          PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                          i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                          UniFi AC-Lite access point

                          I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                          • Raffi_R
                            Raffi_
                            last edited by

                            Thanks guys, I'll have to look into that more for my switch.

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                            • johnpozJ
                              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                              last edited by

                              Where that is really meant to be used.. Is say you have a L2 network.. That you want to multicast some video too.. You could allow only devices that want to see this multicast stream to join this group.. So that multicast is not sent to them if they are not a member of that group.

                              If not then every port on the switch would see that multicast traffic..

                              Now you can do this across multiple vlans with a multicast group that spans L2 networks.. But again you allow a client to join this group.. Then only then do you send them traffic from that group or let them send traffic to that group.

                              You don't just flatten the different L2 networks by sending all multicast traffic to both or multiple L2 allowing for discovery.. That defeats the whole point of isolation and security.

                              To be honest its the software makers lack of thought that brings these sorts of problems... Why does the roku app have to discover.. Because it makes it easy for the user - and 99% of users just have 1 flat network.. So why should they do anything different.. You know like actually publishing what specific ports and protocols are used.. The ability to add a device via fqdn/IP and be done with.. The roku apps allows you to add a device manually.. But then again - that is a like a button click, and just too much work ;)

                              Security goes out the window as soon as there is any sort of lack of convenience to it..

                              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.7.2, 24.11

                              ? 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • ?
                                A Former User @johnpoz
                                last edited by

                                @johnpoz Good overview. Thank you!

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                                • I
                                  imthenachoman @johnpoz
                                  last edited by

                                  @johnpoz said in allowing roku discovery across VLANs:

                                  full byte

                                  HA!

                                  @jaaasshh Did you ever figure this out? I know this breaks @johnpoz's heart but I'm trying to do the same.

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