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Many connections on my OpenWrt router

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DebbieMebbie
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Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#1 Post by DebbieMebbie »

Hi

Should my OpenWrt router look like this?

Seems like a lot of connections when only my phone, wife's phone and TV are on the network..
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Re: Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#2 Post by CwF »

yes, normal.
The active leases should be clear, but 1 device with 1 lease can be hundreds of connections.

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Re: Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#3 Post by steve_v »

DebbieMebbie wrote: 2023-01-26 19:44Seems like a lot of connections when only my phone, wife's phone and TV are on the network..
In today's internet obesity epidemic, where what appears to be a single web page often pulls content from hundreds of other domains, then runs a bunch of javascript connecting to even more, this is (infortunately IMO) completely normal.

Even without any browsers open, unless you have been extremely diligent with your application selection those devices will all be phoning-home, preloading ads, checking for updates, and holding connections open for things like messaging, notifications and the like.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

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Re: Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#4 Post by canci »

What steve said...

Less is of course more. Opting for fewer services used is always a good decision. Using a rooted custom image like LineageOS instead of Android, using as few apps as possible, using a dumb TV instead of a smart one and watching more content from public broadcasters rather than commercial ones that have an incentive to let your TV phone home all the time.

But since you're using OpenWRT, you could look into blocking unnecessary connections with Pi-Hole:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/running-pih ... ces/108144

Of course, according to this link, this might be a bit more difficult:
https://labzilla.io/blog/force-dns-pihole
Nearly 70% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles were found to contain hardcoded DNS settings - allowing them to simply ignore your local network’s DNS server entirely. On average, Smart TVs generate an average of 60 megabytes of outgoing Internet traffic per day, all the while bypassing tools like PiHole.
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Re: Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#5 Post by kent_dorfman766 »

these "phone home" and spyware in apps are why it's a good idea to add a group/owner drop rule to iptables and run suspect apps under that group.

something like a command no-internet my_suspect_program that simply runs the app under a group that doesn't have internet permissions (actually done thru the sg command), via iptable rules such as

-A OUTPUT -d 10.0.0.0/8 -m owner --gid-owner 500 -j ACCEPT
-A OUTPUT -m owner --gid-owner 500 -j DROP

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Re: Many connections on my OpenWrt router

#6 Post by steve_v »

canci wrote: 2023-01-27 16:54
bypassing tools like PiHole.
Nothing a good perimeter firewall and/or vlans can't solve. Personally, I drop all outgoing DNS not originating from my local DNS server and all connections to known DoH (apt name IMO) servers, and anything I don't trust goes in an isolated "IoT garbage" VLAN.
If this BS gets any worse DNS blacklists will have to become become firewall drop rules, but for now the above works pretty well.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

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