Hacking How to block firmware updates via router?

[syldaril]

I've turned off Connect 24 on my Wii so that no new firmware updates are taken in, however as a consequence, I can no longer access the weather or the news channels.
It would be nice if I could get both of those channels back but still be insulated from any future updates.
I know I can configure my router to block my wifi network from accessing specific web addresses, but I am sure that blocking nintendo.com (or wii.com as correctly pointed out by nanika) altogether would also result in the loss of the weather and news channels.

Does any one know the exact address of the server the Wii connects to to check and download updates?
Thanks!

Syldaril

 

[nanika]

If you can block files named "tmd.*" then the Wii cannot download updates. (Or VC games as a side-effect)
This would still allow access to News and Weather.

alternatively, you could try blocking "*.shop.wii.com" . This would also have the same effect as above, but also lockdown the Shopping Channel. (Not 100% sure this would block updates)

Also, I'm not sure what address the Connection Test accesses. You may end up blocking that as well.

nintendo.com has nothing to do with it.

If you block updates by host, you also block the shopping channel.
If you block updates by filenames, you also block downloading other things from the Shopping Channel.
^ These two are definites and cannot be changed.

Alternatively, if you can block "*.shop.wii.com/*/download/0000*" then you can still access everything but updates.

 

[syldaril]

After snooping on my Wii a bit I found out that after forcing a firmware check, the Wii attempts to connect to:

rcw.wc24.wii.com/cgi-bin/check.cgi

in fact if you browse to that address this is what the server returns:

cd=320
msg=Receive data is incorrect format.

I assume 320 is for firmware version 3.20?
There's also a bunch of other urls the Wii connects to when using the various channels:

QUOTE

news.wapp.wii.com/
miicontest.wapp.wii.com/
vt.wapp.wii.com/
cfh.wapp.wii.com/eula/049/en.html (for the end user license agreement)

I actually just found similar information here:

http://mozy.org/wii/

I didn't try this yet but maybe blocking
rcw.wc24.wii.com/cgi-bin/check.cgi would be sufficient to stop any update since the wii wouldn't be able to compare it's current firmware version to the most recent one. This should in theory leave the other channels unaffected.

 

[Cyan]

the adress where the update are downloaded from is :
http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com
this is for PAL Wii, I don't know if it's the same server for every Wii.

For IOS37, read from bottom to top.

[09/04/2008 00:07:35] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/0000000e
[09/04/2008 00:07:33] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/0000000d
[09/04/2008 00:07:32] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/0000000c
[09/04/2008 00:07:31] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/0000000b
[09/04/2008 00:07:31] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/0000000a
[09/04/2008 00:07:30] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000009
[09/04/2008 00:07:28] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000008
[09/04/2008 00:07:26] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000007
[09/04/2008 00:07:25] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000006
[09/04/2008 00:07:23] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000005
[09/04/2008 00:07:23] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000004
[09/04/2008 00:07:22] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000003
[09/04/2008 00:07:21] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000002
[09/04/2008 00:07:20] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000001
[09/04/2008 00:07:20] http://nus.cdn.shop.wii.com/ccs/download/0...000025/00000000
[09/04/2008 00:07:16] ccs.shop.wii.com:443

it has been filtered with a proxy (PS3 proxy from CF3B5)
With this proxy, you can redirect files from internet to your hard disk.
for exemple you can cancel an URL, or force a file from your HDD to be loaded instead of the internet file.

I didn't try to inject another file with this method yet (say, shopping for wiiware instead of IOS37).


if you want to disable the update, you may want to disable the version checking instead of disabling each files one per one.
blocking rcw.wc24.wii.com/cgi-bin/check.cgi is the best way.