802.1p/q pfsense setup
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I am also a TV subscriber, and i did notice that if i put the TV equipment behind a different router other than their own that it would just give me black screens. Even if i did this Fiber jack –-> Their router ---> pfsense ---> tv box.
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I noticed the TV boxes and the storage box send a UDP IPv6 packet to ff02::1 approximately once per minute. This is roughly equivalent to IPv4 multicast on 224.0.0.1? I'm still really green on IPv6.
Even though my pfSense install had a permit any <> any rule for IPv6, it was still blocking these multicast messages. I put in a pass rule using the auto-generate tool in the logs. That let the traffic out, but no replies were coming in. It seems there's a lot that needs fixing. This will really test the patience of my wife ;D
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Can you guys tunnel your TV service through a vlan on your network keeping the isp router, but then have it supply a public IP to Pfsense so you can use it as your edge router? I think this will give you control over the internet which is what you want and also allow your TV service to work undisturbed. What service are you guys using that you get 400 Mbps down? That is amazing!
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400 is slow. It's supposed to be a gig both directions ;) Unfortunately, I think my old Watchguard box will be hardware-limited to ~400. As long as I can fix the upload speeds and get the TV working, I don't really care. Even 400 is faster than pretty much anything else I can connect to.
That's not a bad idea on segregating the ISP router. I'm not yet convinced that it's necessary though. It looks like the TV devices just need to pass certain kinds of IPv6 traffic which pfSense seems to block by default.
Later this week I'll see about borrowing some hardware from work so I can set up a Wireshark tap between the ONT and router. Then we'll see exactly what's going over the wire.
I'm also going to set up one of my Adtran routers to do some testing. I've got a much better understanding of those, and I've got a much easier interface to mess with the .1p tags.
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You're getting better results than i am without the .1p settings, max i have seen is 85/10, and i know my pfsense build can support the whole gig.
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Unfortunately, I think my old Watchguard box will be hardware-limited to ~400.
Are you still running the 2.8GHz P4? My X6000 passes ~365Mbps but it's running at 1.2GHz. I would expect yours to pass well over 400Mbps.
Steve
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Are you still running the 2.8GHz P4?
Yeah. I haven't done anything to the CPU. I stuck more RAM in it because it was sitting in a box doing nothing. But that's the only performance chance I made. I had to replace the PSU and every capacitor on the motherboard though. That was not fun.
I haven't done any throughput testing on it. The reduced speeds could be due to the .1p situation. My outbound requests for data are going into the 'best effort' bin, which has the default effect of slowing down a server's response to me.
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I haven't had a lot of time to do much testing as of now. I have just been trying to research a way of either doing the .1p settings in pfsense or possibly on a switch level before it gets to my pfsense machine.
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I've made a bit of progress. It's not strictly pfSense related, but I'm hoping we can use this to bridge the gap.
I borrowed an Adtran Netvanta 1335 from work. It's basically a router with some Layer 3 switching capabilities. There's 24 10/100 ports and 2 gig ports.
Right off the bat, this old POS looks to be hardware limited to ~120 Mbit/sec even on the gig ports. I knew they were running out of gas (which is why we're replacing them at work) but I thought it was a CPU/ # of firewall sessions problem. I guess it's all of the above.
Also, I have no IPv6 enabled. I'm not even sure it's supported on this platform. No IPv6 = IPTV on this system.
Anyway, I fixed the upload problem. Once I got basic connectivity established, I was pulling 120 down, and only 10 up. Which is what Atlantis and I were seeing on pfSense.
After I got a QoS policy in place, upload improved to match the download rates. I was getting 120 both ways. I did verify that the gig ports were auto-negotiating at the correct rate and not accumulating errors.
So here's what I'm hoping for. Adtran configs are very similar to Cisco. It's my hope that some of the more knowledgeable folks will read what I did with this Adtran, and then chime in with how we might be able to implement a similar config on pfSense.
I'll explain the relevant parts of the config, and I'll upload the entire thing as an attachment. The only changes I've made is to remove the password hashes. Everything else is line for line identical to my running config. Please don't critique it too hard. It's just something I banged together in a few minutes for testing purposes.
So, to get this working:
Create interface VLAN 2, and set it to DHCP.
*Put interface gigabit-switchport 0/1 into VLAN trunking mode. Verify that VLAN 2 obtains an IP address and you can ping out.
*Turn up interface gigabit-switchport 0/2 and let it go on the default VLAN. Add the necessary policies to allow outbound NAT. Verify access.Create access list GF-dhcp
*Set the ACL to match both TCP and UDP port 67. Probably only needs UDP. Whatever.Create access list GF-default
*Set this as a permit IP any <-> anyCreate QoS policy GF-QoS
- On the first policy term, match against the GF-dhcp ACL
- When packets match the ACL, set the VLAN priority / 802.1p / CoS bit 2
- On the second policy term, match against GF-default
- This is the catch-all rule, which applies VLAN priority / 802.1p / CoS bit 3
- I wanted to do a ACL and QoS term for IGMP, but I couldn't figure out how to enable that. Maybe later.
Apply the QoS policy in the outbound direction on VLAN 2.
All traffic exiting VLAN 2 towards the internet will have the .1p / CoS bits set, and upload speeds should see a dramatic improvement.
Anyone want to take a crack at interpreting this into a pfSense config?
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I was just able to get it working, but the QoS part is done through my switch (two ports are vlan'd off, one for the fiber jack, and one for pfsense). The switch strips off the QoS then passing the clean packets to pfsense. No TV as of now, as i probably need to upgrade to pfsense 2.1 to get full IPv6 support.
I have a Zyxel GS1910 switch, and i wasn't sure which bit was for IGMP and which was for DHCP (they all just have a number code on my switch) so i set them all to 3.
The result is a clean 930 down and 934 up.
UPDATE
Upgraded to pfsense 2.1 and set allow all IP6 traffic outbound, still no TV service, i get the guide, On-Demand, and DVR functionality, but no live TV.
UPDATE 2
The TV service not functioning does not appear to be caused by the firewall, it could be that the TV equipment somehow pairs to the router so you can't just take the TV box over to a buddies house and get the service from it. You'd think that they'd accomplish this task by only allowing IPs from their subnets on their IPTV servers, but who knows.
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Have you read up on IGMP at all? I've seen people in other threads about IPTV systems mentioning that they had to run some kind of IGMP proxy in order to get TV working. I haven't dug too deep into it myself since my focus until now has been getting the data working correctly.
I really hope it's possible to get the .1p stuff working in pfSense. I've got a really nice gig switch, but I'd rather not have it managing both internal and external traffic, mainly from a simplicity standpoint. That was a big part of my reason for buying the Watchguard.
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I haven't really looked at IGMP, i am going to investigate that more tonight when i have some time.
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I was able to get my TV service working again, but with a cludge-y work-around. I just added another port on my switch to vlan 2, plugged the network box into that, and plugged the TV into the network box. ISP will give you more than one public IP (I have three from them at the moment, running 2 pfsense machines for fun, and 1 for their network box), so one for pfsense for your data network, and one for the their router and their TV equipment. I am still going to be tinkering around with the TV service though to see if i can get anything to work through pfsense entirely.
Not exactly ideal, as now i cannot use the android app to control the tv equipment (unless i re-activate wireless on the NB and switch wireless networks whenever i want to, which would be stupid.). At least it's working though.
I also contacted them to see if using our own routers was against their ToS in anyway, and i was assured it wasn't, just that their support will not assist us in getting this to work.
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I was just able to get the TV equipment to work through my own router as well. Remember i am still doing the QoS at a switch level though, i am going to tinker around with QoS on pfsense though and see if i can get everything working 100% through pfsense.
Until then my speedtests are right where they should be at about 930mbps download and 930 mbps upload. The IPTV service is also working completely through pfsense, and the TV app is also working great. Life is good.
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Cool! If you have PfSense do the QoS aren't you taking clocks away from PfSense that could be used for other things that the switch has custom asics just for that purpose? For knowledge sake I say go for it, and please document how you got everything to work. 930 Mbps is awesome, I'm really jealous right now!
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That is spectacular. If the occasion ever arises, I'll buy you a beer or two :)
Can you post the config details that get the TV going?
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Yes, i am in the process of prepping a full write up/guide. I will post it in a bit.
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I have completed the guide. Here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zg9ju9373t0fnpu/GoogleFiberRouterGuide.pdf
Have fun!
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Ah, Google fibre. I was wondering what provider was giving you such huge bandwidth. Nice. :)
Reading through your guide (which I'll never be able to actually use :() this part seems potentially confusing:
Access your pfsense’s machine webgui and navigate to Interfaces -> Assign -> VLANs and add
VLAN 2 to your WAN interface, as shown below:At this point, you should now be able to access the internet, though the upload speed will be limited
to about 10mbps.Presumably at that point you actually have to assign the new interface, em1_VLAN2 in your example, as WAN?
Steve
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Ah, Google fibre. I was wondering what provider was giving you such huge bandwidth. Nice. :)
Steve
Yeah, the only remotely bad thing about it was the inability to use whatever router you chose. I assume they give you a router and do this to reduce the volume of technical support calls. Otherwise most of their calls would be regarding slow internet speeds, since most routers wouldn't have the ability to support such high bandwidth.
em1 is my WAN interface (the interfaced directly plugged into port 2 on the switch mentioned earlier in the guide). You would need to tag that interface with VLAN 2.
