website and general internet blocking, NOT working-!

[Kev Williams]

I have a Linksys EA8500 router with a jillion devices attached. It's working okay I guess, but I have it blocking 5 computers from the internet. Only problem is, they're not blocked, they access the internet just fine, all 5 of them. AND, I also have the router blocking certain websites to certain computers. But they're not blocked whatsoever...

I'm using the 'hosts' file and the 127.0.0.1 loopback deally to block these same certain websites plus a few others. And while pinging these websites brings back the 127.0.0.1 address, which is supposed to mean the blocking should be working, every one of these websites I can access just fine...

So at the moment the only way I can disconnect the 5 computers from the 'net is to take them off my network, and I can't have that, these computers are used to run machines and programs that won't run on other computers, they must be networked. And why isn't the loopback working, it did at first, like 3 years ago.

Searching answers to this online I find lots of others with the same issues but no solutions...

Feeling a bit naked here, any ideas?

[Jim Becker]

While our daughters were in their "more impressionable" years, I moved to using OpenDNS for filtering of sites because of inconsistencies with using the router for filtering and used password protected time-based limits directly on their mobile devices. The advantage to using OpenDNS for filtering was that it was a "whole house" solution meaning visitors' devices also could not access material not permitted in our home. When one got a little savvy, I had to add VPN service to the "not permitted" black list, too.

But that doesn't help you for your specific situation. If the local host file entries are not working, it means the device isn't looking at the hosts file. Troubleshoot that...

[Mike Soaper]

It's been a while since I did this stuff, but I think Jim's idea on the hosts files is a good one. I'd check that your modified host file is the one being read, i.e check for multiple hosts files.

[Mike Soaper]

seems really odd that issues seem to be at the router and workstations

maybe a proxy or dns issue on the workstations?

hope this helps

https://serverfault.com/questions/45...o-troubleshoot

[Kev Williams]

Here's a screenshot, where I pinged truthfinder.com which is on my list as a test, which came back as 127.0.0.1,
followed by pinging sawmillcreek.org, which came up with it's actual IP address, and behind the command prompt,
is truthfinder.com, which opened in firefox no problem...?
noblock.jpg

about a year or so ago when I learned of the hosts file, everything worked great, I showed it off to the wife and BIL, anything in the hosts file was DEAD, no outgoing, no incoming- and my router blocked net access and sites as it should. Now it's like they're not even there..

--I went to your link Mike, thanks-- what I tried: checked the registry entry, ok-- I checked the permissions, read and read execute is YES for users, everybody else is full control--I'm about 99.9% there's no proxy server going on-- flushing the DNS doesn't help...

[Mike Soaper]

regarding the router, since it's the traffic to the internet (port) that gets filtered have you checked that the cable to/from the provider is in the correct "internet" port? if it's been put into one of the other ethernet ports the traffic is probably just being switched and not filtered.

[Jim Becker]

When things are operating properly, each computer should first be consulting the HOSTS file when it seeks to resolve a URL for a website, etc. If it exists, the OS is supposed to supply that address (local loop, aka, nada) to the browser or other application. That URL should not be reachable if it's in the HOSTS file and pointing to the local loop address which is unroutable. If it's not in the HOSTS file, the request is supposed to be resolved by a normal DNS lookup which is handled through the router as the default gateway for the local network. The OP said that used to work, but it appears something is causing the HOSTS file he's maintaining to be bypassed and a normal DNS query sent. The question in my mind remains: "What changed?"

----

BTW, Kev, if a user is able to ascertain what the correct numeric address of a site is, they can potentially use that to bypass your HOSTS file preclusion of that site. That's not usually an issue unless the end user has more than passing knowledge of how IP works.

[Kev Williams]

So tell me-- could the problem be so simple as a failing ethernet cable? I mean, I've had more than my share of failed cables over the years, never an ethernet cable...

What I did: found that my router's default gateway and DNS1 address are both the Ooma's IP address, which is 172, -- -- -- ... For some time now when I answer the phone, my callers have been telling me they're hearing nothing, or bad crackling or both for the first few seconds. Not everyone, but say 40%- The Ooma-to-router-IN cable is (was) a flimsy flat cable, it's been basically carrying ALL my internet traffic. I decided to take the Ooma out of the loop and found I couldn't get an internet connection wired straight from modem to router. This (I assume) was because Ooma's gateway and DNS addresses were static and needed changing. Meanwhile one of our granddaughters is home-working doing credit fixes at our place, and I disconnected her phones and computers! (oops)... So rather than experiment more I just reconnected everything back up and rebooted everything. But then the router kept intermittently flashing a big ROUTER NOT CONNECTED! warning... Agghh!!

Awhile back having connection issues, fiddling with the flat cable seemed to help at the time, so, I just now found another cable, swapped it in, and voila, no flashing warnings, everything connected, and surprise of all surprises, all of the websites in my hosts file are blocked, AND, the router IS blocking as it should!

* * * * * * * I'M A HAPPY GUY!!! * * * * * * * *

Not feeling so naked now! But can anyone explain how one cable could be the source of all my internet blocking issues and a few seconds of phone-crackling, while everything else about my network and the 31 devices (at the moment) connected to the router seem to work just fine? Just seems weird to me

Thanks all for the feedback, it helped!

[Jim Becker]

More than likely, completely restarting everything cleared whatever was causing the HOSTs file to be ignored...but yea, a flaky cable can be maddening...

[Mike Soaper]

Glad you got it working Kev

[Paul Brinkmeyer]

Kev
I do not know if this would work for you, but
I basically have the same linksys router as you, only a few years older
I have been planning on putting a couple of computers on instead of using the USB key all the time, but never have until I could figure out to block the internet. So I started looking around to do that like you described today. As I was looking at the router app on my phone I saw parental controls. And it looked like it did everything you talked about, but I did not have to figure out the host file thing.
So I put the target computer back on the network, and using the parental controls I blocked the internet, and all worked just fine. I have access to the computer from all the others, but that computer has no internet access. Printers are shared, folders and files are shared.
The same control let websites be blocked too
so easy even I can do it.