ER605 regularly pinging google.com

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ER605 regularly pinging google.com

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ER605 regularly pinging google.com
ER605 regularly pinging google.com
2022-06-16 09:06:57 - last edited 2022-06-16 13:50:18
Tags: #google
Model: ER605 (TL-R605)  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 2.0.1

Hello,

 

I set my new ER605 Omada Router up second in a Router cascade. When recently monitoring the network devices traffic, I noticed the Router regularly pinging google.com every minute or so. After some quick research, I found similar cases with TP-Link devices showing this behaviour with google.com and other popular domains in order to detect online connection (for example here for a consumer hotspot).

 

Trying to verify whether this is also the case for my device, I added a custom DNS resolution in order to block the connection to google.com and see what happens: Even after hours of the ER605 not beeing able to reach the pinged domain, the status LED did not change and also connection is shown as stable in the Omada backend. Checking the logfiles, there were no other domains pinged during that time. I did the testing without any devices connected, exception beeing the omada software controller on a docker container beeing run for some time to check whether Omada backend shows any errors.

 

Digging deeper, I also checked the data protection agreement (the german version has a part about hardware not included in the international one) but also no mention of transfering any data to google here. I also opted out in the software of anonymous data collection and uploading data to the cloud.

 

So my question remains - what does this ping do any why is it here? I'm honestly a little concerned because google has shown many times it does not respect the european data protection laws to it's full extend.

 

Than you very much for your help!

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#1
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3 Reply
Re:ER605 regularly pinging google.com
2022-06-17 04:22:14

  @T6xic I do think it is Online Detection that send this Ping. No other function needs to Ping a public DNS server. 

I guess the router will not only ping google, but it will ping other domins when it cannot reach google, and if it receive reply(for example, from amazon.com), the router will think it's still online and no need to show an error.

 

I can confirm blocking google will not influence the router online status(on Omada), because I know a ER605 running in China, and it shows Online normally. There's no way in China it can reach google.com

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#2
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Re:ER605 regularly pinging google.com
2022-06-18 13:04:11
Hi @Somnus,
thank you for checking it our on your router and confirming this behaviour. I did some further testing myself and anlyzing a longer timespan, I still cannot find any other domain aside from Google. However, I have to mention I simply use a pre-existing pi-hole on a Raspberry I already had lying around, so the results might not be 100% accurate in another DNS-server is used. I would love to dig deeper and do some further analysis with a tool like wireshark, however I cannot find the option for port-mirroring in the Omada controller, even though the ER605 handbook for V.01 explicitely states it is there. Not sure if this is due to the Omada Controller or the new version of the switch though. Anyone can help out with this one?

 

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#4
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Re:ER605 regularly pinging google.com
2022-06-20 08:03:36

@T6xic That's right. I also can't understand why Omada Controller doesn't allow users to mirror WAN port.

 

Tplink router can do this in Standalone mode. I believe tplink will add this feature to Controller in future.

 

 

 

 

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#5
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