WiFi extender 10s of thousands of requests

Help
1

I've got a TP Link WiFi extender to help with a WiFi black spot.
It seems to be making dns queries at an astounding rate. Like, multiple requests per second. As I type it's at 13,000+ requests and rising...it's been switched on for just short of 2 hours. The domains it's requesting are:

Domain	Hits	Frequency
time.nist.gov	2100	
time-b.nist.gov	2099	
time-a.nist.gov	2099	
nz.pool.ntp.org	2098	
au.pool.ntp.org	2098	
time-nw.nist.gov	2095

It's also querying a.root-servers.net at about half the rate as the above.

Any idea what this is all about?

2

Those are NTP servers, it's checking time very often. No need to worry though it's not sending any personal data

3

Hmmm, ok.
Why would it need to check the time that often though?
This morning at 08.30 I was at 40,000+ queries.
I'm a bit concerned on the strain it will be putting on my Pi and sd card.
It's safe to add to the ignored domains list in admin settings?

4

It's hard-coded into the firmware, you can try setting time to manual in the extender's web interface (if it has one) How to set up system time of Powerline ac Extender | TP-Link

It will not stress out the pihole and there's no harm to SD card. Pihole can handle millions of queries without a hitch.

You can do that, it will not show up in Top Domains / Top Advertisers

5

Thanks.
I've already looked around the settings and it seems my version isn't able to manually set time.
I'd have thought writing to the SD card several times per second (logs) would shorten the life.

I'll add the domains to the ignore list.
This way my pihole stats will show a more realistic outlook

6

Just a quick question?
Will this stop the queries being shown? It seems not?
I have added them to the list, and they don't show on top domains....but the "queries today" stat is still rising?

7

It will just hide example.com form showing in Top Domains / Top Advertisers, every other thing will be same.

8

Ah ok, is there a way to totally remove it from stats?

9

I don't think so....

10

Damn.
It's kind of 'corrupting' my stats.
I'm only interested in 'real traffic' so to speak.

Perhaps a feature request?
@admins

11

Feel free to open a Feature Request with the features you'd like to see implemented.

12

just thought id drop a little update in here...

I have contacted TP-Link to get their take on the constant multiple DNS requests.

Their reply?

"this is the internet diagnostics system, and 1 packet = 100B (well, 56B actually) so it uses no bandwidth"

WHAT!?

is it 100B or 56B?

I can see me getting rather frustrated with them!

13

Well, what can I say...TP-Link suck. Hard!

After a few e-mails exchanged, the final official statement from TP-Link....

"This is how they work, there is nothing that can be done."

I responded with "To confirm, you're saying there is nothing TP-Link UK can or will do, in anyway to improve my experience of your device"

Reply:

"That is correct"

Shocking.
Just need to find the box and receipt now

14

I'm having the exact same problem! Surely this can't be correct???

15

Only way i fixed it by not using tp-link, changed to a AP from Ubiquiti.

16

I completely agree.
It ridiculous.
I wound up using the Pi as an NTP server, so at least the requests are 'going anywhere'...the Pi answers the querires

Yeah, mine is now unplugged, and im goin to look at another brand

18

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