[OT] Roku/Netflix - naughty naughty

Tim Watts

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Jun 6, 2014, 6:40:11 PM6/6/14

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Just got a Roku 3 internet media settop box as they were 20 quid off on
Amazon.

It seems very smooth - except for one thing.

Either Roku or the Netflix app for it is hardcoding a secondary DNS of
8.8.8.8 (Google's public DNS).

Primary DNS is still what DHCP tells it. Manual override not possible.

This breaks (randomly) using unblock-us.com to switch Netflix to the US
catalogue.

I have just had to implement a rather nasty hack of assigning 8.8.8.8 to
my local DNS server[1] and telling my ADSL router to static route
8.8.8.8 back to my DNS. Yech!

Rumour has it merely blocking 8.8.8.8 at the router would be enough. Not
tried yet.

Heard another rumour that Chromecast does this too. I'll find out
tomorrow - I bought one of those too...

[1] My DNS has variable forwarders - for certain client IPs it will use
unblock-us's DNSs and for all else it will use my ISP's. Works rather well.

Anyone come across this?

Tim Lamb

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Jun 7, 2014, 4:36:00 AM6/7/14

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In message <bjs96b-...@squidward.local.dionic.net>, Tim Watts
<tw_u...@dionic.net> writes

Don't understand any of the above but Google (UK) commonly connects to
the *world* version:-(
>

--
Tim Lamb

Tim Watts

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Jun 7, 2014, 4:52:34 AM6/7/14

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On 07/06/14 09:36, Tim Lamb wrote:

> Don't understand any of the above but Google (UK) commonly connects to
> the *world* version:-(

This is media players (one of which happens to be made by Google).

Hardcoding a DNS server IP into something is very very sucky - be fun if
I went all IPv6 and turned off IPv4!

Anyway - just playing. The Roku in other respects seems a very good player.

Chromecast is less so - bit crashy. Doesn't crash as such, but switching
videos in Youtube seems to confuse the app most of the time needing a
disconnect/reconnect to the Chromecast dongle.

Just disabling the Google IP hack to see if that makes any difference
(doubt it).

Tim Watts

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Jun 7, 2014, 7:17:31 AM6/7/14

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Ah - best solution...

Tell my DHCP server that my DNS linux server is the router *just for
roku and chromecast".

Add these 2 rules to DNS server's iptables config:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 8.8.8.8/32 -j DNAT --to-destination
10.0.0.14
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 8.8.4.4/32 -j DNAT --to-destination
10.0.0.14

(10.0.0.14 is the servers own address).

And make sure ip forwarding (routing) is enabled. Voila. chromecast
completely stable now and roku happy.

Much nicer solution as the "buggeration" is cleaner and only applies to
the devices that need it.

Brian Gaff

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Jun 7, 2014, 7:31:46 AM6/7/14

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After all Google loves to see what the world is actually doing on line.
Brian

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From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Tim Lamb" <t...@marfordfarm.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:CQIofV7w...@marfordfarm.demon.co.uk...

Tim Watts

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Jun 7, 2014, 9:01:31 AM6/7/14

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On 07/06/14 12:31, Brian Gaff wrote:
> After all Google loves to see what the world is actually doing on line.

Good point!

But i suspect this is connected with the MPAA dinosaurs whining about
protecting their antiquated concept of regions...