How to get Bell Fibe in Quebec/Ontario (Internet and IPTV) working with pfSense

zax123

Out of curiosity, why didn't you do the full switchover to pfSense? You wouldn't have the strange issues you're reporting had you done that. The Bell Fibe app works and you have full functionality with the Bell TV system.

esnesfp

Hello

I was not able to make it right, wasn't fluid enough, i was losing gateway with apinger and didn't have enough time to figure it out so i reverted back to my old setup, vlan35 on pfsense and vlan36 through hub2000, has i said i have much more readings to do. I take it one step at a time.

thx again

zax123

Oh no worries, just curious.

I assume you are getting two PPPoE addresses because you are passing the ONT signal through a switch which doesn't filter VLAN 35, so both the Home Hub 2000 and the pfSense box have access to VLAN 35.

You could check that by using a service like whatismyip.com. I'm betting your WiFi network (from the Home Hub) is on a different subnet than your wired pfSense network. Might not be great for, for example, controlling wired devices from your Wi-Fi smartphone.

cinergi

@zax123:

Hi @cinergi,

I've received updates with my configuration no problem. I went through the whole setup with a senior bell engineer and he likely would have mentioned this shortcoming if it existed.

I'm using 10.50.0.0/16 for my LAN and I have no problems whatsoever with the 10.0.0.0/8 probably because of the "downstream" setting on IGMPProxy.

Incidentally, you aren't the same @cinergi from the TMC forums are you? :)

Rob

Hello @Zax123,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I thought the forum would notify me of new posts in this thread but it didn't, so I only saw your post now.

It's good to know that the software updates still work with this setup! I'm still working on my own setup. I should have mentioned that I'm not actually using pfSense, but an Edgerouter from Ubiquiti Networks. It runs a version of Vyatta. I'm currently having problems with my multicast streams - the IPTV stream works for about 10 seconds on every new channel, then freezes. I've read that Bell starts each stream as unicast and switches to multicast after approximately 10 seconds, so it seems that my receiver can't make the transition to multicast. I'm working to troubleshoot this issue, but I can't find anything wrong with my IGMP proxy settings.

My IPTV receiver is connected via coax cable (HPNA). I've ordered an HPNA media converter, but in the meantime I've been using the Home Hub 2000 as a media converter by plugging my router into one of the LAN ports (not WAN) and letting the Home Hub bridge this to the HPNA port. It only occurred to me afterwards that the Home Hub might be doing some IGMP and/or multicast filtering on its LAN ports, and since in a standard Fibe configuration this traffic comes from the WAN port, this could explain the issue I'm seeing. I'll be able to confirm once I receive my HPNA converter to replace the Home Hub.

As for the TMC Forums, I'm not sure what "TMC" stands for but I don't recall being a member of any forum with that acronym! :)

Thanks!

-cinergi

esnesfp

Hello

For now I have no Fibe Tv but Internet is ok. Yesterday i began troubleshooting with Bell and its a pain.

I have lost connection with IPTV Gateway, it is offline and no tv, no hockey no baseball….

I have reconnected all the cable as standard, just pfsense in a lan port of the Hub2000.

I have seen a couple of this 16.10.2015 17:00:48 WRN DHCPC The WAN DHCP client process has successfully been terminated on Vlan 36

Any idea?

Thx

esnesfp

Hello

Finally solve my problem, had to replace de HH2000…

Thx

zax123

@cinergi,

The 10 second thing is definitely a problem with IGMP proxy. The settings I show at the beginning of this thread should help you to troubleshoot. Not sure if another router (not pfSense) would have the same settings, but I know that once I implement IGMP proxy in pfSense, that problem went away instantly.

Does your IPTV receiver not have the option of being connected by RJ45 port? That would eliminate the need for the Home Hub 2000 to convert…

zax123

@esnesfp:

Hello

Finally solve my problem, had to replace de HH2000…

Thx

You also could bypass the HH2000 altogether. When you plug pfSense into a HH2000 LAN port, the HH2000 goes into some kind of bridge mode, but it definitely slows down the connection and adds another layer that your packets have to travel through.

My intention with this thread was to eliminate the need for the HH2000 which is definitely possible. I've lived without it for more than a year now.

Now I need to upgrade my hardware because I got gigabit fiber from Bell and my little APU can't handle the speed. :(

esnesfp

Hello

Yes you're right.

But after testing my speed i didn't a big diff between bridge mode and direct input from ONT.

I'm on 50/50 i get 67mgb/s in and 6ms ping.

I have also tried the gigabit plan i was getting 980 mgb/s wich is insanly fast but the plan only give me 150g of bandwith wich is ridiculous so i revert back to 50/50 unlimited.

My pfsense is in and old computer that i have and put in some good ram, HD, 3 ethernet cards, access by ssh or webui, but i suspect that some of my ethernet card don't manage very well vlan tagging.

Good luck

zax123

@esnesfp:

Hello

Yes you're right.

But after testing my speed i didn't a big diff between bridge mode and direct input from ONT.

I'm on 50/50 i get 67mgb/s in and 6ms ping.

I have also tried the gigabit plan i was getting 980 mgb/s wich is insanly fast but the plan only give me 150g of bandwith wich is ridiculous so i revert back to 50/50 unlimited.

My pfsense is in and old computer that i have and put in some good ram, HD, 3 ethernet cards, access by ssh or webui, but i suspect that some of my ethernet card don't manage very well vlan tagging.

Good luck

@esnesfp,

Do you mind sharing what the specs of the old computer are? I was looking into a SuperMicro motherboard and case, etc… and the price was coming close to $1000 which is ridiculous.

Thanks!

Robert

esnesfp

Hello

Motherboard = And old Gigabyte
CPU Type AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
2 g ram
80 g HD

2.2.4-RELEASE (amd64)
built on Sat Jul 25 19:57:37 CDT 2015
FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE-p15

Package installed and online = Squid3, File Manager , OpenVPN Client Export Utility

thx

IMG_1299.JPG_thumb

esnesfp

Hello

Ethernet card have to be Gigabit, i bought 2 tplink at 10$ each.

Also things to take into consideration for the motherboard, take one that has onboard video because yoou don't want to pay for a video card and for the energy that it consume because you don't need any its headless.

Motherboard should have at least two empty mini pci express slots for gigabit ethernet cards.

thx

zax123

@esnesfp:

Hello

Ethernet card have to be Gigabit, i bought 2 tplink at 10$ each.

Also things to take into consideration for the motherboard, take one that has onboard video because yoou don't want to pay for a video card and for the energy that it consume because you don't need any its headless.

Motherboard should have at least two empty mini pci express slots for gigabit ethernet cards.

thx

Cool thanks. Nothing too fancy then. Nice :)

I'll hunt around for a machine with similar specs. Appreciate you taking the time to write back!

Rob

singerie

My specs are pretty simple :

E8500 with 2 gigs of ram.

an SSD for the os, the cheapest one.

when running a speedtest, I have +- 38% cpu usage with bell gigabit. my usual speed is 932 or 933 mbit.

Also, I was wondering if i can share this how to on dslreports under the bell forum… i'm sure people would love this how to !

zax123

Absolutely share! :)

sibisties

My two cents…

For those having IGMP flooding issue, you should probably look into a switch that supports IGMP snooping. This feature will learn which port joined which multicast group and will forward packets properly. Of course the Home Hub has this feature.

Also I had the chance to analyze a Home Hub configuration file (don't ask me how I got this) and found out RIPv1/v2 is enabled on the WAN IPTV interface. Might be worth to look into this, as it would probably remove the need for static routes.

zax123

Would you be willing to share that configuration file? It could help to improve our setup. Thanks!

sibisties

There you go, here is a config file taken from a Sagemcom 2864. It was running on FTTN, but FTTH stuff is there too.

I also included the OpenRG Configuration Guide to help understand how this thing works.

cfg_2864.txt
openrg_configuration_guide.zip

zax123

Wow that's pretty complex. :) I don't know why I expected it to be easier to interpret… maybe there is an interpreter out there. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something in my pfSense config, but I'm not sure I'll be able to figure this all out.

Thanks though! :)

Bastion

Great topic ! Thanks to all posters for sharing.

All system working smoothly here since couple of days.
One wired pvr (VIP-2622)
One wired stb (VIP-2502)
One wireless transmitter (VAP-2500)
Two wireless stb (VIP-2502)

The igmpproxy is broken on 2.2.5 and had to be updated according to this post https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=93293.0
The igmpproxy version on 2.3 is up to date and works https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=102729.msg572837#msg572837

Regards,