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    New PPPoE backend, some feedback

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    • M
      mr_nets @w0w
      last edited by mr_nets

      I make a script to monitor the queues of the parent interface IX2 and all data goes through the queue 0 on the RX side.

      BTW my ISP use a VLAN (IX2 --> VLAN40 --> PPPoE) maybe it doesn't help to manage the queues correctly...

      In 24 Hours
      5a0e6b2d-e486-477e-a21d-885af26de75a-image.png

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      • w0wW
        w0w @mr_nets
        last edited by w0w

        @mr_nets
        There may be only one queue on the network card, but packets can be distributed across CPU cores. Previously, due to netgraph, everything was handled by a single core. The deferred option slightly improved this, but it was a limited improvement—overall, performance was bottlenecked by a single CPU core. At least that limitation no longer exists now.

        In theory, if the network queue never fills up, there shouldn't be any issues. I don't know what the theoretical maximum throughput of a PPPoE session is—maybe Netgate specialists have already tested this? I would expect something like 2.5–3.5 Gbps with multithreaded download.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          It still depends on the hardware but we were able to pass >8Gbps through a 6100 in raw testing: https://www.netgate.com/blog/optimizing-pppoe-performance-in-pfsense-software

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          • w0wW
            w0w @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 said in New PPPoE backend, some feedback:

            It still depends on the hardware but we were able to pass >8Gbps through a 6100 in raw testing: https://www.netgate.com/blog/optimizing-pppoe-performance-in-pfsense-software

            Thanks, great read. Too bad I missed it, but I'm glad you brought it to me today. 🙂

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            • C
              claudio69
              last edited by

              I am testing pfSense 2.8 on my pppoe WAN setup that has been working for many years.
              I noticed that the weekly periodic reset I set on the pppoe WAN is not automatically performed on the weekend.
              If I try to change the setting manually the pppoe connection resets and reconnects but then it will no longer do so automatically

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                You're setting that in the PPP settings on the interface?

                Interesting. That's an advanced setting that only applies to mpd5. It's hidden on the ppp interfaces page but looks like it's not hidden from the assigned interface and probably should be.

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                • C
                  claudio69 @stephenw10
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10

                  I use this setting on a pppoe connection with variable ip.
                  I need it to avoid the connection being reset by the ISP since I do not have a fixed IP.
                  On pfSense from 2.5 to 2.7.2 it worked on all versions.Schermata del 2025-04-21 15-10-18.png

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    I assume you have enabled if_pppoe?

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                    • C
                      claudio69 @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10

                      Yes, I have enabled system/advanced /networking marked Use if_pppoe kernel module for PPPoE client.It seems like a bug in the new version 2.8

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by stephenw10

                        Yes, there is a bug there. However currently the bug is that the mpd5 specific options are not hidden correctly. And that the cron-job is still set even thought the script it calls is not present when if_pppoe is enabled.

                        If you need this for now you should add your own cronjob. This should work: /etc/rc.interfaces_wan_configure opt2
                        Where opt2 is the pppoe interface internal name.

                        This should probably also be a feature request. Let me see here...

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                        • C
                          claudio69 @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          The WAN interface is pppoe1 which is on igb1.
                          There is already a cron job with the script /var/etc/pppoe_restart_pppoe1.
                          If you can tell me if this is ok or if this script needs to be modified?

                          Schermata del 2025-04-21 19-03-04.png

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            That script is created to bring up mpd5 so it's not valid when using if_pppoe.

                            Here's a bug the covers the invalid options: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/16155

                            I'll open a feature request to add back the periodic reset for if_pppoe.

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                              claudio69 @stephenw10
                              last edited by

                              @stephenw10

                              Thanks for reporting.
                              I hope this feature will be included in pfSense 2.8.

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                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by stephenw10

                                It probably won't be in 2.8 but it's a pretty simple feature. I'd expect it could be added via system patches after release.

                                Or you can still just add the cronjob manually.

                                https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/16159

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                                  claudio69 @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10

                                  The thing is I don't know how to manually make the script to put in cron.
                                  If you can kindly give me a working example that would be great and would solve the problem permanently.
                                  Thanks

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Edit the cronjob and change the command to: /etc/rc.interfaces_wan_configure opt2

                                    Where opt2 is the internal interface name for your pppoe interface. If that's actually WAN then use wan.

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                                    • w0wW
                                      w0w @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 said in New PPPoE backend, some feedback:

                                      /etc/rc.interfaces_wan_configure

                                      I'll ask something else while we're at it...

                                      Regarding manually starting and stopping the WAN interface, which is PPPoE — what's the proper way to do it? Especially with the new backend...

                                      /etc/rc.linkup stop wan
                                      /etc/rc.linkup start wan

                                      Or is there something newer now?

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                                      • C
                                        claudio69 @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10

                                        It worked fine.
                                        Thanks for your help.

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                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          That should work. There's nothing newer I'm aware of. Because it's now a regular interface (mostly) you should be able to do regular interface things with it. If you want/need to.

                                          RobbieTTR 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • RobbieTTR
                                            RobbieTT @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10

                                            Is there a definitive list of PPPoE performance tweaks that should be removed before using if_pppoe?

                                            If so, it may be worth adding it to Jim's article too.

                                            Apologies if it exists somewhere but I did look... and clearly I have forgotten all the tweaks I did apply to try and get the best PPPoE performance on the current backend.

                                            ☕️

                                            stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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