Beta [iplhack] BBC iPlayer resurrection

[Owen Smith]

Oh that's what you meant! A direct link to the relevant pinned thread would have been more obvious, eg.

Beta Participation

Newcomers to the Beta Package Programme are STRONGLY ADVISED to read the following carefully. For Custom Firmware users willing to ride the bleeding edge of package development, thus providing valuable feedback before new features and possibly risky updates reach the main-stream users, feel...

hummy.tv

As for insulting me. You started by saying I'd posted in the wrong place when in fact I'm in entirely the right place. And while you admitted being wrong you didn't apologise for it, and furthermore implied I may have posted in the right place accidentally:

I admit I didn't spot that, and it is also possible you hadn't.

What was wrong with "Sorry, yes you did post in the correct place."? Why the need to imply me getting it right might have been accidental?

And then you accused me of getting shirty about it.

Please do not reply to any of my posts in future. There are other people on hummy.tv that are capable of providing help in a civil manner. Like prpr who solved my problem with a 4 word reply.

I would "ignore" you on hummy.tv if only the way that worked wasn't so brute force.

 

[Black Hole]

You started by saying I'd posted in the wrong place

I realise this is shutting stable doors, but for everyone else: there is a sub-forum to the CF section specifically for beta packages, and a pinned thread explaining what to do: https://hummy.tv/forum/forums/beta-packages.53/

You have chosen to interpret my post that way. "For everyone else" - that explicitly excludes you. "Shutting the stable door" means I was posting after prpr had already given the heads up, but nonetheless the pinned thread provides a checklist of things to be aware of when indulging in beta packages in general (which was not included in prpr's post}.

And while you admitted being wrong you didn't apologise for it

I think you are unaware of a particular feature of the forum: it is entirely possible for anyone not to be aware of where any particular post is located, according to how you arrive at it. It is reasonable I thought that was what had happened, because if you were aware of being in the beta section, you should have been aware of the pinned post in the beta section. That's what pinned posts are for, and my post was a statement of fact.

A direct link to the relevant pinned thread would have been more obvious

...but would have failed to make the point about pinned threads in general. You seem to forget that what is written here is not read by just one person, it is like a noticeboard for all to read. What I write is intended to be educational for everyone. prpr gave one man a fish, I taught many how to fish.

What I really want to know is why the pinned thread was not obvious until I pointed it out. Does it need a better title?

What was wrong with "Sorry, yes you did post in the correct place."?

I'm sorry, you come over as very fragile and inclined to read insult where none is intended or even present.

And then you accused me of getting shirty about it.

Again, a statement of fact.

Please do not reply to any of my posts in future.

Then don't post, or don't read my posts. Your choice, nothing to do with me that you don't happen to like my style of writing.

 

[Owen Smith]

And he's off again...

 

[/df]

If a moderator had the time this thread might be made more useful by splitting out the preceding ad hominem (or rather, inter homines) discussion.

 

[Owen Smith]

Deleting everything from post 36 (or maybe 37) inclusive onwards would be fine by me, nothing of value to others was said from there onwards. No need to move it elsewhere in my view.

 

[Black Hole]

I've added this iplhack to the beta repository

@/df: maybe the instructions in post 1 need updating?

Does this apply to HD-FOX? I've had a go with it but no change ("Something went wrong..."), so I wonder whether it only works on HDR-FOX.

 

[prpr]

@/df
The postinst file appears to have a slight error:
/mod/etc/init.d/S99iplhack starti
which should of course be:
/mod/etc/init.d/S99iplhack start

For everyone else's benefit, this means it won't work until you manually start the iplhack service, or reboot.

Does this apply to HD-FOX?

I can't get it to work either.
Name resolution appears to be as desired:

humax4 ~ # nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk
Server:    127.0.0.1
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost

Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk
Address 1: 212.58.249.160 bbc-vip098.lbh.bbc.co.uk
humax4 ~ # nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk
Server:    127.0.0.1
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost

Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk
Address 1: 212.58.249.160 bbc-vip098.lbh.bbc.co.uk
Address 2: 212.58.244.81 bbc-vip126.telhc.bbc.co.uk

After reboot though, iPlayer is working.

 

[Black Hole]

I'm getting different:

HDFOX3# nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                     
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                           
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                       

Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                           
Address 1: 212.58.249.187 bbc-vip125.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                 
Address 2: 212.58.244.88 bbc-vip133.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                               
HDFOX3# nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                               
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                           
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                       

Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                                     
Address 1: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                 
HDFOX3#

...and that was after a reboot, or so I thought, but I have rebooted again and:

HDFOX3# nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                     
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                           
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                       

Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                           
Address 1: 212.58.244.88 bbc-vip133.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                               
Address 2: 212.58.249.187 bbc-vip125.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                 
HDFOX3# nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                               
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                           
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                       

Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                                     
Address 1: 212.58.244.78 bbc-vip123.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                               
Address 2: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                 
HDFOX3#

...which is different but still doesn't look like yours. And it still isn't working. I checked the services and iplhack is reported as running.

 

[xyz321]

I'm guessing that the HD-FOX is not set to DHCP, what does /etc/resolv.conf contain?

 

[Black Hole]

I'm guessing that the HD-FOX is not set to DHCP

You're right, it isn't. The reason this might matter is lost on me, in as much as the manual settings are what it would have obtained by DHCP. iplhack isn't tweaking the router, is it??

what does /etc/resolv.conf contain?

nameserver 192.168.1.254
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

 

[/df]

@/df
The postinst file appears to have a slight error:
/mod/etc/init.d/S99iplhack starti
which should of course be:
/mod/etc/init.d/S99iplhack start
...

Thanks, that'll be fixed in the next version.

After reboot though, iPlayer is working.

My experience is that starting iPlayer after a reboot has more chance of success but isn't a guarantee.

Also, a (manual or automatic) next episode is very unlikely to work.

This might be the SNAFU behaviour of the iPlayer app on HD/R, but I also suspect that the settop program sometimes decides not to use dnsmasq and either resolves directly via one of the many other listed DNS servers or uses cached values. There may be a DNS resolution layer in the Opera library between the iPlayer JS and uClibc.

 

[/df]

Thanks to whoever for the cleanup.

I'm getting different:
...

The BBC may advertise a list of IP addresses for each of the domain names in question, and an address advertised may no longer to map to the domain name some time after it ceased to be advertised. Or the advertised addresses may be those of the least utilised iPlayer servers from time to time. And so on.

You're right, it isn't. The reason this might matter is lost on me, in as much as the manual settings are what it would have obtained by DHCP. iplhack isn't tweaking the router, is it??

No.

nameserver 192.168.1.254
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

The dnsmasq IP address (127.0.0.1) gets added by the script that runs on acquiring or renewing a DHCP lease (/usr/share/udhcpc/default.script).

I've clarified this in my supposedly encyclopedic post on DNS.

If DHCP has never been used since the flash RW storage was initialised, the local DNS address may not make it into resolv.conf. This seems to be a function that's missing from manual configuration: one might ask why dnsmasq is started without first ensuring that the listening address is in resolv.conf. Maybe the settop program adds it if you use the on-screen manual network configuration: more testing needed, if only it wasn't so tedious.

 

[Black Hole]

The dnsmasq IP address (127.0.0.1) gets added by the script that runs on acquiring or renewing a DHCP lease

Ah, so what you mean is (so I can understand it properly) manual configuration of IP Address, Netmask, DNS, and Gateway doesn't do as much as a DHCP - but enough for most purposes (except intercepting DNS requests and spoofing them). If I've got that right, it needs feeding in as a footnote to my primer on networking for HDR-FOX.

Using DHCP is a a bummer for me, the HomePlugs don't wake up in time.

 

[prpr]

I also suspect that the settop program sometimes decides not to use dnsmasq and either resolves directly via one of the many other listed DNS servers or uses cached values.

Yes, I suspected that too, but it's hard to prove.

 

[/df]

See here.

 

[Black Hole]

OK, so I ran the nslookup commands again (still on manual settings), having checked the iplhack service is running:

HDFOX3# nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                   
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                         
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                     
                                                                                                
Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                         
Address 1: 212.58.244.88 bbc-vip133.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                             
Address 2: 212.58.249.187 bbc-vip125.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                               
HDFOX3# nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                             
Server:    192.168.1.254                                                                         
Address 1: 192.168.1.254 www.routerlogin.com                                                     
                                                                                                
Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                                   
Address 1: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                               
Address 2: 212.58.244.78 bbc-vip123.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                             
HDFOX3#

...then I changed to DHCP and applied it (my HD-FOX IP address changed as a result, because my manually-set IP address is outside the DHCP pool):

HDFOX3# nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                   
Server:    127.0.0.1                                                                             
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost                                                                   

Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                         
Address 1: 212.58.244.80 bbc-vip125.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                             
HDFOX3# nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                             
Server:    127.0.0.1                                                                             
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost                                                                   
                                                                                                
Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                                   
Address 1: 212.58.244.78 bbc-vip123.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                             
Address 2: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                               
HDFOX3#

...and then after a reboot:

HDFOX3# nslookup securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                    
Server:    127.0.0.1                                                                              
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost                                                                    
                                                                                                 
Name:      securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk                                                          
Address 1: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                
HDFOX3# nslookup open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                              
Server:    127.0.0.1                                                                              
Address 1: 127.0.0.1 localhost                                                                    
                                                                                                 
Name:      open.live.bbc.co.uk                                                                    
Address 1: 212.58.244.78 bbc-vip123.telhc.bbc.co.uk                                              
Address 2: 212.58.249.157 bbc-vip095.lbh.bbc.co.uk                                                
HDFOX3#

Is that as expected? Whatever, it does now seem to work (or at least I think it would if my network was faster).

 

[/df]

The key thing is that it's using dnsmasq in the second and third cases as shown by "Server: 127.0.0.1". However, the securegate.iplayer subdomain resolves to an address that isn't one of those listed for open.live, so either iplhack hasn't kicked in yet or the BBC have rotated the advertised addresses.

You can see what iplhack is doing with the magic incantation for ff in /proc/*/cmdline; do sed -ne '/\/dnsmasq/ p' <$ff 2>/dev/null; done: look for the string "-A/securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk/<IP addr>" embedded in the output.

 

[Black Hole]

-A/securegate.iplayer.bbc.co.uk/212.58.249.158

iplhack has had days to kick in.

 

[prpr]

Is that as expected?

Looks good to me. You want securegate to be one of the open.live ones.

 

[/df]

If the -A/securegate... stuff is there, it means dnsmasq is running from iplhack rather than from the system startup script. The listed IP address would have been the first open.live.bbc.co.uk address when iplhack last restarted it, which happens regularly to avoid using a stale address.