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androidlinuxdnsipsecsony-xperia

no dns via ipsec tunnel android 4.4.2 xperiaz C6603 racoon


I've setup a racoon server on my linux router. It was working ok with my xperiaz (C6603) road warrior. However after I applied the latest update to android 4.4.2 (firmware 10.5.A.0.230) it stopped working correctly. I have ping from the phone to each ip (local ip or internet) but when I use FQDN it can't be resolved. I can ping the phone from within my local network too. VPN is IPSec Xauth RSA. Checking with adb DNS server is correctly set:

getprop net.dns1
192.168.6.1

I also tried pushing the same ip as dns2 but no change. I also noticed that after closing the connection to the vpn server net.dns1 remains 192.168.6.1 however the phone is able to correctly resolve addresses. In few minutes it gets changed back to my 3g provider setting.

I tried to redirect all traffic through the tunnel via the advanced vpn setting (Forwarding routes = 0.0.0.0/0) and tried to set DNS statically via the same settings (DNS servers = 192.168.6.1). Even setting the DNS server to my provider's DNS addres didn't work which makes me think the problem is with the android itself.

DNS server is working as far as I can tell:

$ dig @192.168.6.1 dir.bg +short  
194.145.63.12

Forwarding is enabled on my router so shouldn't be the problem. I've read about a bug in android but it's in android 2.x and seems to impact wifi connections.

Have you seen similar problems and as I'm not an expert with android and adb, can you tell me what commands are available in adb/shell to trace the problem? Phone is not rooted and it's not possible for the moment to root it.

UPDATE:

the tunnel is working ok when I connect via wifi hotspot. The problem appears to show only via my 3g carrier. Any ideas how to work around this?


Solution

  • After updating to 4.4.4 I still got the same problem. Further testing revealed that the problem is more likely to be in the Android rather than my 3g carrier. Over wifi the VPN worked flawlessly after using wifi tethering from another phone via the same provider it worked ok again so my 3g carrier isn't blocking anything.

    Yesterday I finally rooted my phone and installed SDFix to restore full access to my SD card. Now VPN is working ok again even via 3g. I hope someone can confirm/reject that solution as I see no relation between vpn and sd card at all. However I experienced initially the problem with my update to 4.4.2 where Sony started to follow Google's policy about storage access.