How does the TC update check work?

[Pathduck]

Hi,
first of all congratulations on the release of TC 11, I've been using TC for over two decades and it's my super-toolbox for getting things done

A question: I use TC on the admin-server at work and after the v11 update was released, TC notifies on startup there's a new version available. I was not expecting this, as this admin-server is not connected to the internet at all. So apparently TC is able to bypass several firewalls/routers to get outside, or I'm misunderstanding something?

I've tried to have a look using Wireshark and Smartsniff but I'm unable to see what connections are being made.
My *guess* it uses some kind of WinInet component to do a connection, possibly over UDP?

I'm wondering if there might be a misconfiguration on our side and it would be interesting to know

Stian

[white]

My update checks work only once a day with DNS lookups, which are cached by internet access providers. So please use these instead.

Instructions are here:
http://www.ghisler.com/news.htm

[Pathduck]

Oh yeah - that's clever

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releaseversion.ghisler.com. 900 IN      TXT     "10.11.0.0;1"

Outbound DNS works I guess, even from inside the network.

I guess I totally missed those requests when looking at traffic - now that I know what to look for it's obvious

Thanks for the information!

[white]

Thanks for the information!

Happy to be of service.

[MaxX]

releaseversion.ghisler.com

Can I access this via browser?

[JOUBE]

releaseversion.ghisler.com

Can I access this via browser?

Maybe at a Webpage that supports nslookup. Or on the command line?

Code: Select all

nslookup -type=txt releaseversion.ghisler.com

[tuska]

RELEASEversion

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TOTALCMD#BAR#DATA
cmd.exe /c "nslookup -type=TXT releaseversion.ghisler.com & pause"

%COMMANDER_EXE%,2
RELEASEversion: Check for updates with command line on Windows|cmd.exe /c "nslookup -type=TXT releaseversion.ghisler.com & pause"|https://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=352381#p352381|[https://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=52012 Settings/Manually]

0
-1

[Pathduck]

releaseversion.ghisler.com

Can I access this via browser?

Yes

https://networkcalc.com/api/dns/lookup/releaseversion.ghisler.com

https://www.nslookup.io/domains/releaseversion.ghisler.com/dns-records/txt/

https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=txt%3areleaseversion.ghisler.com

Or curl:

Code: Select all

$ curl -s "https://networkcalc.com/api/dns/lookup/releaseversion.ghisler.com" | jq '.records.TXT[]'
"10.11.0.0;1"

[Sir_SiLvA]

TC also checks (if you have check for beta enabled it in the options)
releasenobeta.ghisler.com to see if there is a beta at all
and if yes it checks releasebeta.ghisler.com for latest beta version

HTH

[MaxX]

nslookup -type=TXT releaseversion.ghisler.com

That was pretty good. Interesting solution with 10.*.*.* IPs.

[ghisler(Author)]

It has several advantages:
- it's privacy-friendly, we don't see the IP addresses of the users, only those of the name servers
- it greatly reduces server load because name server lookups are cached by Internet providers
- it works even when ghisler.com is down (ghisler.ch is secondary DNS server)

[Hurdet]

Do it have a TXT for Beta and Android Beta and Release Version?

[Sir_SiLvA]

Do it have a TXT for Beta and Android Beta and Release Version?

for TC Betas:

TC also checks (if you have check for beta enabled it in the options)
releasenobeta.ghisler.com to see if there is a beta at all
and if yes it checks releasebeta.ghisler.com for latest beta version

and no there is no such things for Android (which would be pointless)

[Hurdet]

and no there is no such things for Android (which would be pointless)

It would be useful to avoid installation for updating to those who prefer to avoid it.

[Sir_SiLvA]

It would be useful to avoid installation for updating to those who prefer to avoid it.

#1 this sentence doesnt make any sense
#2 the playstore/fdroid should show if your version is recent
#3 if you wanna see which version is recent on a pc just check viewtopic.php?t=76644 for a changed title