Sky Fibre to the Cabinet Rollout - PfSense support?
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Ha! Well it depends who you ask.
Technically I'm an electrical/electronics engineer but I left my job a few years ago to do some travelling and have been decorating on and off while I think of something better to do. ::)
Hence plenty of free time for commenting!Steve
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Hey Stephen,
Unfortunately I am still without Sky fibre (roll on Friday!) however I may not attempt much messing about as it will cause the DLM (Sky line monitoring) to flag my connection as flapping and then get throttled.
There is an awesome plugin here tho:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=40194.0That seems to fit the bill exactly to what we need to do to accomplish this if your suggestion doesn't work.
I will be trying to negotiate an MER connection tonight with my current unlimited broadband, however
really cool. do let me know if you get it working without the patch. It makes sense it should work just with the existing dhcp hostname and mac cloning on wan.
A guide written up would be really cool for anyone new to this once we getting it working.
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No need to spoof the MAC on WAN even.
@http://www.billion.uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=343&start=20#p1492:
Sky MER authentication don't use Option 60, so mac spoofing is not needed.
Steve
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Is there a way to check if my exchange even supports MER?
I tried it last night, both spoofing MAC and not - using the PPPuser|PPPpass - no good, never got an IP.
Now my connection even on traditional PPPoA won't connect…
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What modem are you using? It has to be set to MpoA to use MER.
As detailed: http://wiki.ph-mb.com/wiki/MER#WRT54G_.26_Similar_running_TomatoSteve
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What modem are you using? It has to be set to MpoA to use MER.
As detailed: http://wiki.ph-mb.com/wiki/MER#WRT54G_.26_Similar_running_TomatoSteve
I set it to MER, still no go.
Unsure what's happened. Going to try my spare pfsense build and see if it's because I'm messed so much with the WAN settings its corrupt it.
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Is there a way to check if my exchange even supports MER?
I tried it last night, both spoofing MAC and not - using the PPPuser|PPPpass - no good, never got an IP.
Now my connection even on traditional PPPoA won't connect…
please post dhcp log from systems log, so we can see what is happening
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Is there a way to check if my exchange even supports MER?
I tried it last night, both spoofing MAC and not - using the PPPuser|PPPpass - no good, never got an IP.
Now my connection even on traditional PPPoA won't connect…
please post dhcp log from systems log, so we can see what is happening
Does it save after a reboot?
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Okay, small update to this.
I tried again last night with the correct modem settings, the DHCP log kept showing DISCOVER but no offer.
Maybe my exchange isn't MER enabled - I don't know how to confirm this.
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Hmm, I don't think it's the exchange that has to be MER enabled. The authentication servers are not in the exchange.
They probably do have to support MPoA at the exchange though.
Edit: Nope probably just ticking a check box on some central server.Unless you managed to get hold of a friendly sky engineer I don't know how you could find out. How likely is that! ::)
Until you are sure you can connect via MER any results you get may just be more confusing than useful.
Only one more day to wait.Steve
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May have been a modem issue (or firmware)
Fibre dropped today, will be attempting to get it up and running tonight!
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Boom.
First pfsense install on MER/Fibre
All you do is use the tool here>http://www.ph-mb.com/products/sky-calc and ensure you select the Sagem one.
Then in hostname under DHCP on the WAN connection add your username|password (with the bar).
Connected first time. Well happy!
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Ha. Nice. ;D
Steve
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glad to hear.
was the MER only enabled when you switched to fibre?, or was it enabled all along.
Do you mind posting a brief guide for all sky users that may wish to use pfsense as their firewall/router
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glad to hear.
was the MER only enabled when you switched to fibre?, or was it enabled all along.
Do you mind posting a brief guide for all sky users that may wish to use pfsense as their firewall/router
Yes. For me anyway, I know some users have been using MER for ages on their ADSL line.
I was with Sky since 2008 for broadband though so I was using the legacy PPPoA mechanism with no possibility to use MER.
All you need to do is enter your router username and password (like this (with the | bar) -> USER|PASS) with the bar that you get from the ph-mb website (http://www.ph-mb.com/products/sky-calc) using your fibre routers LAN MAC and wireless key (8 LETTERS).
Drop it into the DHCP connections 'hostname' field:
Simple as that.
Please Note: It is NOT your previous sky adsl username and password
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thank you very much both of you.
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On BT Fiber that I have had working with pfsense for about 5 months, I have to set the WAN interface as PPPoE and set my username and password specified from BT. I wonder why sky uses that connection type and BT does not. Does it make any difference? Just different isp software?
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Well it means they don't have to use PPPoE. No PPP layer means less overhead and a slightly faster connection. Pretty weak argument!
It means they can connect almost anything that has an ethernet port, it doesn't have to support PPPoE. A Sky satellite box perhaps.I have a mate who deals with this sort of thing I'll ask him.
Steve
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Hi All,
I'm in the process of moving to sky (Adsl not fibre), and they are sending me straight onto the SVBN, which I believe means I will be on a MER only connection (no option to use PPPoA).. Currently I connect to my BT broadband using a ZyXEL P660R-D1 Ethernet router, with ipcop handling the actual connection.
It appears that it wont work with the new Sky setup.. but I believe that pfSense will..
Can anyone confirm that the settings and advice in this thread is equally relevant to the ADSL connections? Im just wondering if I should move to pfSense now in preparation as I have no desire to use the Sky ADSL Router.. I'd like to put my router into ENET ENCAP mode which ZyXEL tell me is the same as RFC1483 MER, and then use pfSense with the modifications above to get it all connected.. (Which I hope means I can get rid of the sky router)
Thanks (and apologies for this not being 100% on topic but it didnt seem to deserve a new thread either)
