OpenDNS Family Shield not working on Android Tablet?

surfrock66 · ‎02-09-2016

My home network is governed by a Ubuntu Server running isc-dhcp-server and bind9. The dhcp server splits devices into 3 groups; adult clients, child clients, and guests. Adults are in 1 subnet and get a personal DNS resolver which resolves internal url's, and then resolves to google's DNS. Guests get just google dns. Child clients, ideally, would get OpenDNS Family Shield.

My son got his first tablet, so this is the first device to try this with. It is an LG G-Pad 8, running Android 5.0.2. The device gets on the wifi correctly, gets the correct IP in the correct subnet. Using the Wifi Analyzer app, I can see that DNS1 is 208.67.222.123, and DNS2 is 208.67.220.123, which is correct for OpenDNS Family Shield.

None of the test websites (http://welcome.opendns.com, http://www.exampleadultsite.com, and http://www.internetbadguys.com) work, the first says I'm NOT using openDNS Family Shield, and the other 2 display normally.

I have completely erased the wifi network and re-added it, no change. I have cleared the android chrome browser cache, no change. I have tried in incognito mode, no change.

I am connected to a comcast business class gateway; I have no reason to believe they are intercepting DNS traffic.

I have no windows devices in the house, only Linux. Any advice is appreciated.

rotblitz · ‎02-10-2016

To possibly find out why this device is not using OpenDNS, install something like http://dyn.com/apps/dig/ on it to e.g. see what DNS service you actually use.

Alternatively, connect any computer to this subnet and execute these diagnotic commands to get similar results:

nslookup -type=txt debug.opendns.com.

nslookup whoami.akamai.net.

rotblitz · ‎01-15-2017

I think I found a solution: disable the Data Saver option.
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2392284?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en

surfrock66 · ‎01-17-2017

You know what's so weird? That was disabled. I went on the tablet and saw that...then I just tried the test sites, and opendns family shield was working. Dunno what changed...I did a re-IP'ing of my house which probably forced a lease refresh, but who knows. Either way it's working now.

rotblitz · ‎01-18-2017

OpenDNS not working for you as expected can have many different reasons, caused by your equipment or your ISP. The Data Saver of Android Chrome is just one of many possibilities.