Javascript detection on DDNS

Help
1

When accessing the admin page over DDNS (provided by Asus) using port forwarding JavaScript popup is displayed and functions are disabled, but when checking it is enabled.

Doesn't happen when accessing from the same browser without DDNS so suspect it's either a bug in the detection or, knowing my luck, a limitation of the DDNS?

Thanks!

2

I'm not certain I understand exactly how you're trying to access your Pi-hole. My understanding of what you're doing:

  1. Using the DDNS feature of an Asus router to obtain a FQDN such as silmarilsrouter.asuscomm.com (please don't put your real one here, see below for reasons)

  2. Using the port forwarding feature of your router to expose your Pi-hole's web ui to the internet.

  3. Visiting your Pi-hole at silmarilsrouter.asuscomm.com

Firstly, exposing either port 80, http server or port 53 DNS server, of the Pi-hole to the internet is not recommended. The web ui is sent over http, and vulnerable to data manipulation or capture, and any security flaws in Pi-hole or lightttp could be exploited. Exposing the DNS server (which you haven't said you've done, but just in case) leaves your system open to attack or to serve as part of a DNS amplification attack against another host.

From a technical perspective, the reason the javascript is broken is that your Pi-hole does not expect to be on the domain silmarilsrouter.asuscomm.com - it only expects to be on http://pi.hole, or http://127.0.0.1. So it will not render correctly when trying to access it from an incorrect domain.

Depending on which Asus router you use, it may offer VPN hosting, (my understanding is that most of their recent models do), which is a more secure way to achieve what I think you are after than using port forwarding. You can use the built-in VPN hosting on Asus routers in conjunction with the DDNS feature.

Then you'd basically do this instead:

  1. Using the DDNS feature of an Asus router to obtain a FQDN such as silmarilsrouter.asuscomm.com

  2. Connect via VPN to your network (using silmarilsrouter.asuscomm.com as the VPN destination on the system you are trying to access from). You'll be assignd an IP on your local network, and all traffic will be encrypted.

  3. Visit http://pi.hole as you would from any system on your network.

3

Hi,

Thanks for that, you're completely right and I'll use the vpn option, I've been using DDNS out of convenience for accessing the router admin on the go, but thats over Https.

Thanks for making me think straight :slight_smile:

SiL

4

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