[outages] Belkin [heartbeat.belkin.com]

Tue Oct 7 14:43:13 EDT 2014

In my experience. It breaks DNS Masquerading. So any DNS query sent to the router goes unanswered. Verified this with a customer by having them hard-set their Local DNS (On their computer) to my public resolvers.

 I suspect anything that didn't require DNS worked fine (RDP inbound..SIP Outbound once it resolved the SBC Address. Assuming it had a DNS Hostname).

 The current thought (Around the NOC here) is that DNS is breaking due to another user friendly feature. Where the router forwards you to it's config page automatically, if it thinks you have no internet..

 Nick Olsen
Network Operations  (855) FLSPEED  x106

----------------------------------------
 From: "John Neiberger via Outages" <outages at outages.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 2:32 PM
To: "Frank Bulk" <frnkblk at iname.com>
Cc: "outages at outages.org" <outages at outages.org>
Subject: Re: [outages] Belkin [heartbeat.belkin.com]   
  I just saw a report from another ISP who says they had a customer whose VoIP continued to work and they were able to RDP into their computer from the outside. It appears that only web traffic was broken. I wonder if parental controls or web filtering are a component in this fiasco.

 John

   On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote:     

No, we're still getting customer reports about the light staying orange. I was just hoping they were having other issues.    

I've just added 67.20.176.130 as a loopback in our network, too.  

Frank  

From: John Neiberger [mailto:jneiberger at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 1:01 PM
To: Frank Bulk
Cc: outages at outages.org   
Subject: Re: [outages] Belkin [heartbeat.belkin.com]

Given the number of current social media postings, it doesn't appear that they are back up yet, but I suppose it is hard to say for sure given the number of people affected. Twitter is all aflutter with new reports of people still having problems. Yours is the only report that indicated they were working again. It could just be that it's taking a while for the devices to correct themselves, or maybe they even need to be restarted or something like that. 

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote:     

Why do that if Belkin is up and running again? Or are you suggesting that Belkin doesn't have it all worked out?  

Frank  

From: Outages [mailto:outages-bounces at outages.org] On Behalf Of John Neiberger via Outages
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 12:42 PM
To: outages at outages.org    

Subject: Re: [outages] Belkin [heartbeat.belkin.com] 

Has anyone else tried the loopback/heartbeat workaround with success? I've seen a few reports so far that this has temporarily solved the problem. 

John 

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com> wrote:     

I can ping heartbeat.belkin.com and the DSL Reports link and other connected links are stating it was back up roughly 30 to 45 minutes ago, so I think we're out of the woods.  

Frank  

From: Outages [mailto:outages-bounces at outages.org] On Behalf Of John Neiberger via Outages
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 11:04 AM
To: Josh Luthman
Cc: outages at outages.org; John Barbieri
Subject: Re: [outages] Belkin [heartbeat.belkin.com]  

I think it was initially suspected to be a firmware upgrade, but I doubt that's the case now. It's interesting to me that there are two seemingly unrelated fixes: 

1. Put the IP for heartbeat.belkin.com on a loopback  

2. Manually add working DNS entries to affected PCs 

Reports indicate that either fix works, but why? They seem unrelated to one another unless the failing heartbeat messages mess up DNS handling on the router. 

John 

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Josh Luthman via Outages <outages at outages.org> wrote:    

Where?  I keep reading "bad firmware" problems but everything suggests there is no automatic upgrade and I think we can safely assume resi users didn't upgrade their routers over night. 

Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373 

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:35 AM, John Barbieri via Outages <outages at outages.org> wrote:   

Funny,

Just saw something about Belkin routers and a botched firmware upgrade.

I wonder if this is what they meant.

That being said, it is working fine from Zito Media in Clanton, AL.

--John    

On 10/07/2014 10:17 AM, Paul Miller via Outages wrote:   

On one of my netblocks my subscribers can nolonger ping Belkin.  I can ping
heartbeat.belkin.com from my webservers and from subscriber units on a
different netblock.

Apparently Belkin routers ping the home base every couple seconds to determine
the correct color of the Internet light on the router (orange or blue *sigh*).
Worse, when it can't ping the Belkin site the router seems to pack up and
redirect my subscribers to their router configuration page.

I found this pretty easy to work around.  I simply DNATed the pings intended
for heartbeat.belkin.com to one of my local nameservers and that seems to get
them back online.  It's a silly workaround, but if anyone else is seeing all
the Belkin routers on their network pack up, this could be why.

-Paul

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