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void-zones-tools for FreeBSD

Prepare a list of void zones that can be readily fed into Unbound.

What is a void zone?

In terms of Unbound, a void zone is a static empty local-zone, i.e. one without any local-data directives, for example:

local-zone: "void.example.com" static

With this in place, Unbound would answer any DNS requests for void.example.com with NXDOMAIN.

For what are void zones useful?

Void zones are the most straightforward way of blocking ad, tracking and other malware domains. While the method is similar to the Hosts file approach, the void zone method got 3 advantages:

1. Requests for any subdomain of the void zone result in NXDOMAIN. In Hosts files every subdomain needs its own entry.

2. In Hosts files, each entry does consist of an IP address and a fully qualified domain, so DNS requests for a given domain would return the listed IP address. For blocking purposes either 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 is used, which may result in undesired side effects:

   • in the case of 127.0.0.1, developers won't be able to run a test web-server on localhost, and any software is supposed to try to establish a connection to localhost, and this usually ends up in a timeout error.
   • in the case of 0.0.0.0 ill-behaved software still tries to establish a connection, which cannot work, but resources are utilized until timeout.

   The void zone response is NXDOMAIN, and no software would try to establish a connection to a non-existing address.

3. The void zone method can be deployed on the gateway, and any number of clients behind the gateway do benefit automatically from ad, tracking and malware domain blocking. While Hosts files need to be deployed on any single machine. Even if this is not that difficult on desktops and notebooks, this may easily become a PITA for mobile clients. You would need root login on your Androids, iPhones and/or iPads.

How does this compare to Browser Plugins?

1. Browser plugins are destined to one piece of software and not to the whole machine. Void zones are active for the whole machine or in the case of a gateway, for any number of clients, and even for those (Android) which don't allow ad-blocking plugins.

2. Browser plugins are active filters, that means, beside the advertised behaviour, they are able to do something in the background. This is a matter of trust, which may sometimes miserably trapped -- see the WoT incident. Void zones are passive. The actual filtering is done by the DNS resolver, here Unbound, which is much less likely of doing undesired things behind your back.

How do I deploy the void zone method on my FreeBSD machine?

The void-zones-tools made it into the FreeBSD ports and it can be installed from source or from the binary package repository:

# cd /usr/ports/dns/void-zones-tools
# make install clean

or

# pkg install void-zones-tools

Of course, it is also possible to build it from the source of the present github repository. Either clone the void-zones-tools project using Git or check it out with Subversion:

# git clone https://github.com/cyclaero/void-zones-tools.git

or

# svn checkout https://github.com/cyclaero/void-zones-tools.git/trunk/ void-zones-tools

Enter the directory of the working copy of the void-zones-tools and build & install the tools:

# cd void-zones-tools
# make install clean

The tools consist of the Hosts file converter & consolidator hosts2zones and the shell script void-zones-update.sh which is used to download suitable Hosts files from 8 pre-defined providers:

• PGL - Ad blocking with ad server hostnames and IP addresses
• SomeOneWhoCares - How to make the internet not suck (as much)
• MVPS - A detailed guide for using the MVPS HOSTS file
• AdAway - Hosts
• DNS-BH – Malware Domain Blocklist
• FadeMind - UncheckyAds
• WindowsSpyBlocker - Spy Hosts

The tools are placed by the above command sequence into /usr/local/bin/.

On the first run of void-zones-update.sh, a directory is created at /usr/local/etc/void-zones/, which serves as the storage location for the downloaded Hosts files and/or Domain listings. In addition a template for a custom white/black list my_void_hosts.txt is placed into that directory, and this may be used for whitelisting some zones that are inadvertently part of the downloaded Hosts files, or for blacklisting additional zones, which are missing from the downloads. Now execute said shell script:

# void-zones-update.sh
# nano /usr/local/etc/void-zones/my_void_hosts.txt

# white list
1.1.1.1 my.white.dom

# black list
0.0.0.0 my.black.dom

For whitelisting use the IP address 1.1.1.1, and for blacklisting 0.0.0.0 shall be used.

The downloaded Hosts files are placed into /usr/local/etc/void-zones/ as well:

# ls -l /usr/local/etc/void-zones

total 1876
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   13722 Jan 31  2017 away_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  640858 Aug 17 19:16 jdom_void_list.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  497673 Aug  7 11:07 mvps_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   60257 Aug 21 05:43 pgl_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  376421 Aug 20 14:40 sowc_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel     618 Aug 22 09:29 ucky_void_host.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    9977 Aug 22 09:29 w10telm_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel     886 Aug 22 09:29 w7telm_void_hosts.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    1142 Aug 22 09:29 w81telm_void_hosts.txt

And finally the void-zones-update.sh compiles (converts & consolidates) all Hosts files and Domain listings into one single local-void.zones include file, and moves this into /var/unbound/ for direct usage with Unbound:

# head /var/unbound/local-void.zones

local-zone: "clk.cloudyisland.com" static
local-zone: "click.silvercash.com" static
local-zone: "oascentral.pressdemocrat.com" static
local-zone: "s29.cnzz.com" static
local-zone: "www.spywarespy.com" static
local-zone: "republika.onet.pl" static
local-zone: "preview.msn.com" static
local-zone: "pos.baidu.com" static
...

For using the void zones method, of course Unbound must be up and running already on the given FreeBSD machine. Then edit the configuration file /var/unbound/unbound.conf in order to activate ad, tracking, malware and telemetry domain filtering by Unbound:

# nano /var/unbound/unbound.conf

Before any forwarder directives, e.g. forward-zone: or include: /var/unbound/forward.conf add the following line:

include: /var/unbound/local-void.zones

Then restart Unbound:

# service local_unbound restart

For future updates execute the following command sequence which may be placed into a cron job:

# /usr/local/bin/void-zones-update.sh && /usr/sbin/service local_unbound restart

In order to facilitate inclusion of listings which are not part of the automated updating, 3 additional input files are passed by void-zones-update.sh to the conversion tool hosts2zones:

x_void_list.txt
y_void_list.txt
z_void_list.txt

This mechanism can be used to include for example the Disconnect.me listings to the hosts2zones processing by executing the following command before updating the other zones:

# fetch -o - \
        https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt \
        https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_malware.txt \
        https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt \
        https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_malvertising.txt \
        > /usr/local/etc/void-zones/x_void_list.txt

Said command would place the respective lists joined together into /usr/local/etc/void-zones/x_void_list.txt, and on the next run of void-zones-update.sh that one would be converted & consolidated & included into the local-void.zones for filtering by Unbound. In the case these additional files are missing, the tool simply ignores these parameters.