Arch Linux

scararch

Member

Registered: 2019-01-14

Posts: 1

What is ping.archlinug.org?

Hi,

I've been an Arch user since 2017. Definitely, I am totally not a 'social' person. I don't use forums, quit (read = detoxed from) social networks in the last 2 years, so excuse me if my first post is not a presentation.

Going straight to the point...

I'm using pi.hole (https://pi-hole.net/) to monitor and block ads/malwares on my network. It's a great way to also see all the DNS call made 'under-the-hood'. So far, I noticed that - from pi.hole admin webpage - ping.archlinux.org was on top of the most resolved domains.

Not having found any information on it on this forum, nor anywhere else, I decided to block it. I did it LESS than 6 hours ago, and this is the result:

https://i.imgur.com/PFXQsRY.png

876 queries.

Question time.

ping.archlinux.org clearly state that it's being used for 'network testing', but does not go into details. Can please someone explain exactly a) what program/service is trying to 'call home'? b) What is the exact reason for this? All is working fine since I blocked it. What is the advantage of having my distro call ping.archlinux.org every 10s~ or so?

Thanks.

PS: actually I found this https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ … nnectivity, still is not clear to my why ping.archlinux.org is necessary.

Mod Edit - Replaced oversized image with link.
CoC - Pasting pictures and code

Last edited by Slithery (2021-05-21 19:42:13)

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: What is ping.archlinug.org?

Welcome to the forums scararch

What don't you understand in the wiki page that you linked to?

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GaKu999

Member

From: US/Eastern

Registered: 2020-06-21

Posts: 696

Re: What is ping.archlinug.org?

That is the network manager equivalent of network-online.target.
You can disable it as stated by the wiki.

In the essence, its a connectivity checker, like the archlinux ntp servers are for ntp.
And ping.archlinux.org is a simple checker, curl `ping.archlinux.org` says it pretty clearly.

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My repos • Some snippets

Heisenberg might have been here.

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,911

Re: What is ping.archlinug.org?

NetworkManager primarily uses that to determine whether your system connects through a portal[1] where you have to login to access internet or has a direct connection .

For a system that always has a direct connection it's not needed.

NetworkManager seems to be the only network management tool in archlinux repos that does this, you could switch to another tool.

[1] a few examples of such portals
university network
public wifi on airport
hotel network

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,190

Re: What is ping.archlinug.org?

NetworkManager does two things with this check. First it detects portals, second it detects if the network is restricted to a local LAN or has internet connectivity. For some reason NM think it has to check that so often to update the status icon...

NetworkManager seems to be the only network management tool in archlinux repos that does this

connman has portal detection as well. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/network/ … rc/wispr.c

http://ipv4.connman.net/online/status.html / http://ipv6.connman.net/online/status.html

you could switch to another tool.

Or just disable the check in networkmanager, but for a stationary system dhcpcd or systemd-networkd will be just fine.

By the way, browsers do it as well: Firefox has built in portal detection. I imagine Chromium does it, too.

Last edited by progandy (2021-05-22 12:04:56)

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