How to make the most of a 1.15Gbps (Gig1) Virgin Media ISP

[noggin]

I've been running an SH4 with round robin balancing into a Mikrotik RB4011 following the guide here : Greater than Gbit on Virgin Media

All has been working fine for 3 months, including various power cycles. The SH4 was always showing a white LED ring in Modem mode.

Recently the SH4 started flashing green at certain times of the day (firmware update?) and speeds regularly dropped to 50Mbs from 1.15Gbs. On July 2nd or 3rd this speed drop became permanent, and the SH4 showed a permanent green ring.

Initially rebooting into router mode with just one cabled ethernet connection was also giving me 50Mbs so I thought it was a network issue and logged a fault. This fault was acknowledged by VM in my post code.

Had a VM engineer around yesterday to fix this - and they appeared to. WiFi speeds were >500Mbs and a cabled network connection was 940Mbs in router mode with nothing connected.

When I rebooted to modem mode with my round robin connection to the Mikrotik - back to 50Mbs max. Rebooted again (still in modem mode) with a PC directly connected to the SH4 over Ethernet, back to 940Mbs (after the obligatory wait for a new MAC address to be recognised etc. etc.)

Rebooted again with just one connection to the RB4011 - 940Mbs. Connected a second connection for Round Robin - drops to 50Mbs.

My software is now reported as : AR01.04.055.06.07_040722_7245.PC20.10.LG.X1

040722 in the file name suggests a 4th July 2022 version?

Could VM have uploaded new software to my SH4 that :
1. Goes solid green in Modem mode ?
2. Has broken round robin load balancing ?

Or could this all just be coincidence?

Does anyone else have this firmware - and are they successfully round robin-ing still?

 

[carlpea]

I've been running an SH4 with round robin balancing into a Mikrotik RB4011 following the guide here : Greater than Gbit on Virgin Media

All has been working fine for 3 months, including various power cycles. The SH4 was always showing a white LED ring in Modem mode.

Recently the SH4 started flashing green at certain times of the day (firmware update?) and speeds regularly dropped to 50Mbs from 1.15Gbs. On July 2nd or 3rd this speed drop became permanent, and the SH4 showed a permanent green ring.

Initially rebooting into router mode with just one cabled ethernet connection was also giving me 50Mbs so I thought it was a network issue and logged a fault. This fault was acknowledged by VM in my post code.

Had a VM engineer around yesterday to fix this - and they appeared to. WiFi speeds were >500Mbs and a cabled network connection was 940Mbs in router mode with nothing connected.

When I rebooted to modem mode with my round robin connection to the Mikrotik - back to 50Mbs max. Rebooted again (still in modem mode) with a PC directly connected to the SH4 over Ethernet, back to 940Mbs (after the obligatory wait for a new MAC address to be recognised etc. etc.)

Rebooted again with just one connection to the RB4011 - 940Mbs. Connected a second connection for Round Robin - drops to 50Mbs.

My software is now reported as : AR01.04.055.06.07_040722_7245.PC20.10.LG.X1

040722 in the file name suggests a 4th July 2022 version?

Could VM have uploaded new software to my SH4 that :
1. Goes solid green in Modem mode ?
2. Has broken round robin load balancing ?

Or could this all just be coincidence?

Does anyone else have this firmware - and are they successfully round robin-ing still?

Sub 30mbit speed on Gig1

Title says it all really. SH4 in modem mode, connected to a Unifi UDM Pro. PC I am running the test from is connected to the UDM-Pro via 10G DAC. This is the sort of speeds I see: I've tried calling VM but I can never get through, the one time I did get through after 30 mins on hold, the line...

community.virginmedia.com

It appears the bonding has broken in the latest firmware being rolled out.

 

[noggin]

Sub 30mbit speed on Gig1

Title says it all really. SH4 in modem mode, connected to a Unifi UDM Pro. PC I am running the test from is connected to the UDM-Pro via 10G DAC. This is the sort of speeds I see: I've tried calling VM but I can never get through, the one time I did get through after 30 mins on hold, the line...

community.virginmedia.com

It appears the bonding has broken in the latest firmware being rolled out.

Thanks - that's a pity. Let's hope they roll out the SH5 (With 2.5GbE connectivity) to us soon...

 

[ChuckMountain]

My router hasn't updated its software, not sure if it will do on a reboot but I am still on 01.02.065.21.EURO.PC20 and the router has been up for 46 days.

Not keen on rebooting and I am having some connectivity issues this morning

It seems quite a backward step, has anybody tried to see if any of the others bonding options work instead?

 

[metalshark]

Just got the solid green light update and again 50mbps. Bye bye ~200mbps from my pfSense.

 

[ChuckMountain]

Doh I managed to renegotiate my GigOne for £33 + £6 02 Sim and ended up getting a SH5 thrown in.

I did have to have a weird setup as my router only had one port greater than 2.5Gbps.

 

[metalshark]

Doh I managed to renegotiate my GigOne for £33 + £6 02 Sim and ended up getting a SH5 thrown in.

I did have to have a weird setup as my router only had one port greater than 2.5Gbps.

SH5 working fine > 1gbps?

 

[ChuckMountain]

SH5 working fine > 1gbps?

Yes sorry should have said yes it works fine so long as your got >1 Gbps ports involved on the particular chain (e.g. router has at least 2.5GbE port)


My setup previously was

SH4 -> x2 Cable -> Mikrotik CCR1009 (Router) -> SFP+ DAC to main network switch giving full bandwidth (1.15Gbps)

SH5 -> 2.5GbE -> Mikrotik CRS312 -> VLAN SFP+ DAC > CCR1009 (Router) > back out same DAC into CRS312 giving full bandwidth (1.15Gbps)

If the CCR1009 had 2.5GbE then I would have gone straight into that

 

[Blueyonderer]

Hi all.

Like everyone else here, my previously stable 1.15Gb connection has been nerfed by VMs latest firmware update to the Hub 4.
My previous contract is up so I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a Hub 5 as part of a retention deal, but I'm not holding my breath.

On the off-chance that I manage to get one, @ChuckMountain can you give a little more detail about your current setup since it seems that I'll be in a similar situation to you, kit-wise:
I have a Mikrotik router with only 1 x 10Gb port (SFP+) but I have a Zyxel XS1930 switch with 8 x 10Gb RJ45 ports plus a couple of SFP+ slots which does support multiple VLANs.

I follow up to the bit where you say 'back out same DAC'... my experience of setting up VLANs is limited but I do understand how they work in principle.

Prior to reading this I'd been considering connecting the Hub 5 directly to the Mikrotik router via SFP+ and then bonding a couple of ports between the router and the switch but your solution seems to require fewer ports (a good thing if/when the mythical 2.2Gb service is ever rolled out, which would require 3 cables, if bonding).

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[ChuckMountain]

Hi @Blueyonderer sure no worries will describe in hopefully a bit more detail, not sure how this will translate to the Zyxel but it should hopefully work.

The basic idea is you have the VM SH5 on a separate VLAN let's say VLAN 100 to match the 192.168.100.1 address that it would normally be on. On the Mikrotik router you have a VLAN interface connected to the default bridge with VLAN 100 and add a Client DHCP to that which then should be allocated your external IP address from the VM SH5. Then on the Firewall you have your masquerade action with the out-interface as the VLAN interface. Then make sure you firewall rules reflect any changes required. This should then r

A bit more detail

First of all get yourself something like this at the right length, at £11 it's the cheapest way of doing 10Gbps connectivity (and no issues with heat like you do with SFP+ <> GbE connectors.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MRPJ60I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So plug that into the respective SFP+ ports on the Mikrotik and the Zyxel.

Now you need to configure both SFP+ ports as trunk ports for VLAN use supporting at least VLAN 100 and the default VLAN 1 and any more you might have.

On the Zyxel let's say Port 1, configure this as VLAN access port only for VLAN 100 and then plug a cable into the SH5 2.5GbE. Traffic will then be allowed to flow from Port 1 over the SFP+ DAC link to the Mikrotik router.

On the Mikrotik router assuming all ports are already in the bridge, then you need to create a VLAN interface off that bridge, it should appear as a nested item on the Interface tab on the Interface List panel. Call this something like VLAN-WAN so you it's obvious what it is. Add a DHCP Client IP address setting the interface as VLAN-WAN. Once everything is set up correctly this should be allocated your external IP address and you should see it in the DHCP Client Panel.

On the SFP+ port ensure that under Bridge -> Ports that the SFP+ port is configured as "admit only VLAN tagged" (makes it a trunk port) and ideally Ingress Filtering is turned on (stops anything other than what you have tagged i.e. 1 and 100 from being accepted on the trunk)

Then under the bridge panel go to VLAN tab and add a VLAN 100 with Tagged ports of the SFP+ port and the Default Bridge. It should create VLAN 1 automatically but you can add it manually if you wish.

On the Interface List panel - Interface List tab if you have any values make sure that under WAN it is just the VLAN-WAN.

Then finally on the default bridge under bridge, on the interface itself go to VLAN and enable VLAN filtering.

A word of warning though at this point it is possible to lock yourself out of the mikrotik admin interface if you have done it wrong. I would also recommend taking a backup of the configuration at the point before you apply this. Then if you do then you can reset the router and reload the configuration. Also some Mikrotik routers behave slightly differently and you need to make sure the Mainbridge is included as a tagged port

I hope I haven't missed anything as it takes a bit of time to get your head around the concepts (follow the advice on the Mikrotik examples on the newest Wiki)

I do though think this is a better solution than link aggregation as depending on the type used you have no guarantee that you will get the full bandwidth that way for one client.

Yes I am still waiting for the new one 2.2Gbps service, mainly because I want a faster upload

 

[Blueyonderer]

Hi @Blueyonderer sure no worries will describe in hopefully a bit more detail, not sure how this will translate to the Zyxel but it should hopefully work.

The basic idea is you have the VM SH5 on a separate VLAN let's say VLAN 100 to match the 192.168.100.1 address that it would normally be on. On the Mikrotik router you have a VLAN interface connected to the default bridge with VLAN 100 and add a Client DHCP to that which then should be allocated your external IP address from the VM SH5. Then on the Firewall you have your masquerade action with the out-interface as the VLAN interface. Then make sure you firewall rules reflect any changes required. This should then r

A bit more detail

First of all get yourself something like this at the right length, at £11 it's the cheapest way of doing 10Gbps connectivity (and no issues with heat like you do with SFP+ <> GbE connectors.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MRPJ60I/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So plug that into the respective SFP+ ports on the Mikrotik and the Zyxel.

Now you need to configure both SFP+ ports as trunk ports for VLAN use supporting at least VLAN 100 and the default VLAN 1 and any more you might have.

On the Zyxel let's say Port 1, configure this as VLAN access port only for VLAN 100 and then plug a cable into the SH5 2.5GbE. Traffic will then be allowed to flow from Port 1 over the SFP+ DAC link to the Mikrotik router.

On the Mikrotik router assuming all ports are already in the bridge, then you need to create a VLAN interface off that bridge, it should appear as a nested item on the Interface tab on the Interface List panel. Call this something like VLAN-WAN so you it's obvious what it is. Add a DHCP Client IP address setting the interface as VLAN-WAN. Once everything is set up correctly this should be allocated your external IP address and you should see it in the DHCP Client Panel.

On the SFP+ port ensure that under Bridge -> Ports that the SFP+ port is configured as "admit only VLAN tagged" (makes it a trunk port) and ideally Ingress Filtering is turned on (stops anything other than what you have tagged i.e. 1 and 100 from being accepted on the trunk)

Then under the bridge panel go to VLAN tab and add a VLAN 100 with Tagged ports of the SFP+ port and the Default Bridge. It should create VLAN 1 automatically but you can add it manually if you wish.

On the Interface List panel - Interface List tab if you have any values make sure that under WAN it is just the VLAN-WAN.

Then finally on the default bridge under bridge, on the interface itself go to VLAN and enable VLAN filtering.

A word of warning though at this point it is possible to lock yourself out of the mikrotik admin interface if you have done it wrong. I would also recommend taking a backup of the configuration at the point before you apply this. Then if you do then you can reset the router and reload the configuration. Also some Mikrotik routers behave slightly differently and you need to make sure the Mainbridge is included as a tagged port

I hope I haven't missed anything as it takes a bit of time to get your head around the concepts (follow the advice on the Mikrotik examples on the newest Wiki)

I do though think this is a better solution than link aggregation as depending on the type used you have no guarantee that you will get the full bandwidth that way for one client.

Yes I am still waiting for the new one 2.2Gbps service, mainly because I want a faster upload

Wow - thanks for taking the time to prepare such a detailed response!

I'll take a proper look at this after work.
I had a delve into the Zyxel's VLAN menu items last night and it does seem to have all of the necessary bells and whistles so I'll post my resulting config here if I get it working.
The router and switch are already connected via a 50cm optical link via SFP+ so I'll hopefully be able to get the network topology switched over and working before the Hub 5 arrives (if I can get one) so that it should be a simple plug and go exercise when it does.

That's assuming my wife and kids can survive without internet for an evening... it's getting to the stage were I'll need to book an outage in advance since uptime is normally 100%

Cheers.

 

[Blueyonderer]

Step one of my plan is complete now - Virgin Media sent an engineer around earlier today and he installed a Hub 5 for me, which I've switched into modem mode (Yay!).

So, at time of writing, the new Hub 5 is still connected to my router via the 'old' method which is good enough to keep things working for now.
Next I will read through and fully understand the VLAN tagging/trunking instructions @ChuckMountain kindly supplied above then get stuck in when I get some time to myself.

More, as it happens...

 

[nikolarun]

Step one of my plan is complete now - Virgin Media sent an engineer around earlier today and he installed a Hub 5 for me, which I've switched into modem mode (Yay!).

So, at time of writing, the new Hub 5 is still connected to my router via the 'old' method which is good enough to keep things working for now.
Next I will read through and fully understand the VLAN tagging/trunking instructions @ChuckMountain kindly supplied above then get stuck in when I get some time to myself.

More, as it happens...

Hi, I am in the same boat, how did you manage to swing a Hub5? I've tried a few times , even with retentions ( where I did get a better deal ), but sadly no hub5 for me.

 

[Blueyonderer]

Hi, I am in the same boat, how did you manage to swing a Hub5? I've tried a few times , even with retentions ( where I did get a better deal ), but sadly no hub5 for me.

Hi.

I guess I lucked out with the person I spoke to in retentions. He said the only way to get a new hub was if the old one was faulty. I argued that the quality of my service had deteriorated since the firmware upgrade due to the loss of link aggregation. After this he said he had no way to order one for me because the option to request a hub 5 only appears on accounts who are on a hub 3 or lower so he'd have to raise a fault and get a technician to come out. I thought I was being fobbed off and that the tech would turn up and say nothing was wrong (which is technically correct). Instead he turned up with a hub 5 and, because I had the kit in place to handle better than gigabit speeds, he was actual quite happy to do the upgrade. He recounted various stories about having to do this for people who were running connections over slow WiFi connections where it would make zero difference, so it was a nice change to actually do an upgrade for someone that could actually use the additional bandwidth.

So... reporting a fault and pleading with the engineer might be your best bet.

Good luck!

PS I never did take out a new contract so I may be able to use this in my favour when the price rises land.

 

[nikolarun]

Thanks for the reply. I will give it another go next week.

 

[Blueyonderer]

A quick status update: I managed to get my hands on a Mikrotik CRS312 switch since I found entering commands using MikroTik's console much more intuitive then navigating multi-tab GUI menus, but I burned up my allotted time and more at the weekend getting a DHCP client running on it. I was doing this when (quickly!) creating a known-good configuration to fall back on if I couldn't get the VLAN segmentation working properly, having swapped out my Zyxel switch. It turns out that the issue was caused by a known problem to do with a protocol setting on the default bridge whereas I'd assumed it was something I'd missed during initial setup. So, long story short - I'll take another swing at this the next time I get a few hours free, since I do have the network working properly now at a basic level (and working settings backed up) albeit not in the target topology that I'm working towards.

 

[noggin]

Yes sorry should have said yes it works fine so long as your got >1 Gbps ports involved on the particular chain (e.g. router has at least 2.5GbE port)


My setup previously was

SH4 -> x2 Cable -> Mikrotik CCR1009 (Router) -> SFP+ DAC to main network switch giving full bandwidth (1.15Gbps)

SH5 -> 2.5GbE -> Mikrotik CRS312 -> VLAN SFP+ DAC > CCR1009 (Router) > back out same DAC into CRS312 giving full bandwidth (1.15Gbps)

If the CCR1009 had 2.5GbE then I would have gone straight into that

Hi ChuckMountain - are you able to elaborate on your setup?

I've got an RB4011 (1xSFP+) and a CRS305 (4xSFP+) and CRS309 (8xSFP+) - and am struggling to get my head around Mikrotik's approach to VLANs. I also have a Zyxel XGS1250-12 (which has 3 x 1/2.5/5/10GbE ports and 1 x SFP+ and is managed)

I know I need to configure a 2.5GbE RJ45 port on the CRS (with an RJ45 SFP+) switch or Zyxel 10GbE port switch to route the SH5 over a VLAN (say 100) to the RB4011s SFP+ port (acting as a trunk?) with a DHCP Client on it, and then also route the LAN (either untagged or tagged with a different VLAN?) through the same RB4011 SFP+ port to the CRS or Zyxel switch so that I can then access it via an SFP+ port (CRS) or 2.5GbE (Zyxel) port.

Any advice on Mikrotik config - starting either from nothing or from default config would be gratefully received...

VLANs vs PVIDs vs VLAN Filtering vs Bridges vs Pools vs Interfaces vs Ports is all quite new to me (I've set-up VLANs on SoHo managed switches in the past - Netgears and Unifis) but only really done basic router config in OpenWRT before this. (I was running an SH4 with load balancing from the script that was posted Greater than Gbit on Virgin Media until the firmware broke that)

 

[noggin]

Just an update on this. I have a working set-up with a temporary test setup simulating my SH5 2.5GbE connection, an RB4011 (effectively running in Router-on-a-Stick mode) and a CRS305 running to handle the VLAN stuff into and out of the RB4011's SFP+ port. Runing the CRS305 in SwOS made it a lot easier to set-up the VLANs.

Have a 10GbT-RJ45 SFP+ in one CRS305 SFP+ port (chose a model that was 2.5GbE compatible) which I connect my SH5 in Modem mode to. This port on the CRS305 is set-up to be on VLAN100 (so incoming packets are tagged VLAN100 and VLAN100-tagged packets are switched out to that port with the tags removed).

I have a second, trunk, port on the CRS305 connected to the RB4011 (initially with a DAC for testing, then with a Fibre SFP+ 10GbE connection for my particular set-up) configured to send packets tagged with VLAN100 out to the RB4011 with the VLAN100 tags intact.

The RB4011 is configured with a VLAN100 interface on it's single SFP+ port, SFP-SFPPLUS1, and that VLAN100 interface replaces the Ether 1 interface in the default WAN configuration.

I've left the LAN stuff as untagged/VLAN1 and that then presents itself on the other two SFP ports of the CRS305 as untagged LAN, as well as the Ether 1 port.

I'm sure there are 'better' ways of doing this with separate management lans, a second tagged VLAN for the LAN etc. - but for the moment this works.

Need to tidy it all up a bit and put it into service before I can check my connectivity speeds.

 

[Blueyonderer]

Noggin's recent post jogged my memory about this topic since it had completely slipped my mind after work got in the way shortly after I posted here last.

I absolutely want to give this another go but I've got builders starting work on my house on Monday then I'm out of the country for a week at the beginning of September. This means it's likely to be another six weeks before I can dedicate any time to this.

If/when I do get it up and running properly, I'll post my working config here, since ChuckMountain did spend time helping me out previously.

I've currently got my SH5 connected to my CCR1009 via a 10Gb copper SFP+ module (running quite hot at 2.5Gb, as expected) and the CCR1009 is then connected to my CRS312 via a bog-standard 1Gb port. This means that I can at least max out my connection across multiple clients.

I removed the Zyxel switch (model XS1930-10) from my setup because, although it was advertised as being fully managed, only limited VLAN functionality was available unless a further licence was bought and installed.