#Apple meshcop and trel issue in openthread.thread.home.arpa

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

thin lichen
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Let' discuss it here in an own thread.

slate terrace
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openthread.thread.home.arpa
i dont have this. odd

thin lichen
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You have to add the domain to discovery manually. Did you do that?

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This is definitely something Apple specific.

slate terrace
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ill do that now

thin lichen
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On the Mac you see the domain automatically. But on the iPhone you can add it by the + sign to your favorites.

thin lichen
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@slate terrace Any result? 😉 How many Apple TBRs do you have?

slate terrace
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mine just gets stuck on scanning lmao

thin lichen
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Hm… How many Apple TBRs do you have? You have a mixed environment, if I remember right, Apple, Google, OTBR. Nanoleaf…

slate terrace
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yeah, got 2 homepod minis (17.5) and a ATV4K (tvos 18)

slate terrace
thin lichen
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@neat sequoia and @haughty ether If I remember right, you also have Apple TBRs in your environment. Can you please answer the following questions?

  • How many TBRs from which brand do you have?
  • Which network brand do you use?
  • Can you please use the Discovery App for iOS or macOS and configure/add the following domain as a favorite?

openthread.thread.home.arpa

Can you please post a top level screenshot, where I see the content of the following two services?

_meshcop._udp.
_trel._udp.

Thanks

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/discovery-dns-sd-browser/id305441017

vapid geyser
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@thin lichen I see the same in my network. Under .local I see all 3 of my HPMs listed, whereas under .o.t.h.a I only see one HPM and it seems to change as well.

thin lichen
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Ok, that is good for me. I am not alone. 😃

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Which brand is your network equipment?

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I am a Unifi user and with Unifi you never know… 😅

vapid geyser
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UniFi as well 🤦🏻, though doing a quick search for .o.t.h.a only seems to bring up queries on Apple forums and one GitHub issue relating to macOS, so it looks like it’s an Apple specific advertisement. Possibly related to HK over Thread?

thin lichen
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Maybe this is what we can expect. What do you think about it?

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In my opinion it should be the same result for both domains.

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@brisk trout Hi, sorry for the disturbance. We need someone with an Apple Thread network, who is not using Unifi equipment. 😃 Can you check the following, please?

#1252172897733312512 message

vapid geyser
vapid geyser
bitter cradle
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i have 2 homepods, and one appears under .local and under openthread.thread.home.arpa. no unifi router. no mdns replication. i do have unifi wifi and switches, however.

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i suspect its part of DNS-SD replication and nothing to pay any attention to

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its author is also on the draft RFC author list

vapid geyser
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I think @thin lichen ‘s query was that he (and I) see differences in the .local and .o.t.h.a domains for _meshcop and _trel (all devices advertised under .local, only one advertised under .o.t.h.a), and wondering whether it’s an issue on the HomePod/TBR side, or a UniFi issue

bitter cradle
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is the difference that only 1 appears under .o.t.h.a?

vapid geyser
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Yeah

bitter cradle
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and the one thats visible

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is it the currently active "Home Hub"

vapid geyser
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Nope. My Apple TV is my current Home Hub, and it’s old enough that it doesn’t have Thread to be a TBR.

bitter cradle
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interesting

vapid geyser
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Plus the device you get back under .o.t.h.a changes as you reload/refresh the query, similar to doing DNS round robin

bitter cradle
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so Apple is running an unfinished RFC, and the upstream TBR doesn't have it yet and has a PR from 2022.

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when you do a browse on ._trel under .local, whats under .o.t.h.a doesn't matter

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the RFC is meant to get rid of having a single DNS server

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so i assume right now they vote for DNS

vapid geyser
bitter cradle
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but this new unfinished thing means it will round robbin and load balance over all replicas

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only apple has implemented it, so it'll only ever be apple devices answering

slate terrace
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thats hella strange yall are even getting the .o.t.h.a domain showing up

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i have it, but 0 items. oddddd

bitter cradle
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i suspect its either a bug that they are leaking services they don't replicate, or they are only meant to be replicating services on the thread network and are accidentally leaking some on the infrastructure network

vapid geyser
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From some quick searches I did, it did look to be very Apple specific, with any RFCs having come from Apple engineers. Looks to have been something as part of iOS 15.x to improve HK stability by moving from multicast DNS to a unicast approach

bitter cradle
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the RFC i linked to is apple and google

slate terrace
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huh yeah, so it appears for me atleast that .o.t.h.a flashes for a brief moment at most

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so yall must have something broken for it to stay attached for a long time

bitter cradle
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and google has been tryig to land it in openthread since 2021

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do you have something like _srpl-tls._tcp.local?

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pretty sure i do, but away from house

vapid geyser
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Yeah, with my 3 HomePods referenced

bitter cradle
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so otbr won't have that service until the PR i linked to is merged, but apple is already running it (or their version of it)]

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it doesn't make sense for a homepod to replicate services from another homepod

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because you'd just browse .local and see the answers directly

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assuming its the same DNS service running .local and o.t.h.a, i assume its just leaking all (or a subset of) its own data from .local into o.t.h.a by accident

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i have had o.t.h.a for over a year at this point iirc

thin lichen
thin lichen
thin lichen
bitter cradle
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this all still fits with it just being dsn-sd replication, just that we can't see the leader in apple's UI, nor which DNS-SD replica answered

thin lichen
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Today I wanted to look at the domain openthread.thread.home.arpa, but it doesn’t exit anymore. I think, it became unavailable with latest Apple OS 17.6 updates.

Do you still see it?

slate terrace
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on the dev betas, i dont either

thin lichen
slate terrace
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oh yeah!

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duh hahahaha

neat sequoia
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In meshcop udp is it bad that my apple border routers are on port 49153 and my home assistant + aqara are on port 49154?

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Also am not seeing the openthread thingy anymore