Hi,
I’m using Adguard Home and I see this:
Ping.alta.inc 147.318 pings.
I see also some DNS providers:
doh.opendns.com
dns.google
Can you tell me why this is? I’m using Unbound and Adguard for my own DNS requests.
I find a ping count of 147.000 a little high 
This is basically the device(s) checking in. May I ask over what timeframe you’re seeing these nearly 150k pings?
Are you using any scheduling or guest portals on your network(s)?
You may, no problem. One week.
No scheduling or guest portals.
DNS requests are also for checking in?
No. Apologies for the confusion. The DNS queries could be attributed to the guest portal/scheduling as each has a web page hosted on the AP for dynamic DNS entries. The web pages are for the guest portal itself, or, in the case of scheduling, the page that would allow a client to request more time when the schedule has the network access turned off. This is moot since you’re not using either of these features, but that was the point of the question.
I’ll have to inquire with the devs as to why the DNS queries are present. Before I do, I just want to be 100% clear that you’re seeing these queries coming from the APs, is that correct?
The DNS requests:
cloudflare-dns.com 15.079
dns.google 15074
doh.opendns.com 15069
Well, if I see the requests it’s pointing to 192.168.0.1, that’s my OPNsense (firewall). But I force every DNS request to my Unbound which is running on a VPS within my network so I think it’s going to 192.168.0.1 after that. Before the AP’s I did not notice these requests.
Is there something I can do to find out if they are from the APs? Got three of them and two Alta switches.
I’ve got the manage.alta.inc tab always open in a pinned tab, maybe this is a reason why there are so many requests?
It could be, depending on what browser you’re using. I know Chrome has recently started…I don’t even know what to call it…“backgrounding”? “putting tabs to sleep”? In theory, if that’s happening, the tab shouldn’t be passing traffic. But regardless, the ping.alta.inc is checkin for the hardware itself, so the web browser should have nothing to do with that.
@Alta-Jeff can you shed some light on the DNS queries? Excluding the ping.alta.inc, of course.
ping.alta.inc has a TTL of 3600 seconds, but the resource it points to, dl.alta.inc, has a TTL of 60 seconds because it is an alias to a CloudFront distribution.
It appears that the firmware currently prefers to use the latter TTL of 60 seconds, and because the firmware uses secure DNS, you will see DNS requests to the major DOH providers once per minute.
Yeah, I notice some weird stuff if I block those three DNS provider requests. But why do you choose for this option? Because I’m using my own DNS like Unbound and own lists for my privacy. I don’t want that DNS providers can check my DNS requests. Is there a way to turn this off?
there is also a hit to accounts.google.com when you log in to the manage portal.
I do not use google sign in or apple sign in.
While there is a hit (and a cache hit) to accounts.google.com I don’t see any to the other sign in point.
Just seems an unnecessary call if you are not using it.
GET
https://accounts.google.com/gsi/client?onload=gapiLoaded
it was initiated from main.0868c308.js:4
There is also a JSON fetch to sentry.io
So when will the onPrem controller for us to use? This would reduce a lot of the external network calls from the access point.
@BliXem This secure DNS is used by the Alta firmware only – it does not interfere with the client DNS traffic at all. It is required for full Alta firmware functionality, in particular to work around LAN DNS servers that are (too) strict with DNS rebinding protection.
Alright, thanks for your clarifcation
