New PPPoE backend, some feedback

[stephenw10]

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

[w0w]

@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.

[claudio69]

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

[stephenw10]

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.

[claudio69]

@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.

[stephenw10]

I assume you have enabled if_pppoe?

[claudio69]

@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

[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...

[claudio69]

@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?

[stephenw10]

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.

[claudio69]

@stephenw10

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

[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

[claudio69]

@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

[stephenw10]

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.

[w0w]

@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?

[claudio69]

@stephenw10

It worked fine.
Thanks for your help.

[stephenw10]

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.

[RobbieTT]

@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.

️

[w0w]

Does anyone have packet loss on a new backend? The connection is not interrupted just loss of packets, about 5%, once a day or so.

MONITOR: WAN_PPPOE has packet loss

This could be something on isp or on my side also, because I haven't seen this before. IDK...

[stephenw10]

Not seen any significant loss here. Been solid since I switched both my edge PPPoE links to it:

And I'd been running it for months before that on one WAN in 25.03.