Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => Broadband Hardware => Topic started by: Craig on June 30, 2021, 08:54:42 AM

Title: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: Craig on June 30, 2021, 08:54:42 AM
Hey everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could provide any pointers or direction on getting line bonding (2 x VDSL, through AAISP) working on an EdgeRouter-4. I understand that the download is handled their side, but would like to benefit from bonding the upload, which I need to configure my side.

I've seen a few posts of people saying they've got it working with AAISP and an ER-4, but not giving any more details (and the posts are often a few years old, so I doubt their accounts are still active).

Thanks,
Craig
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: hushcoden on June 30, 2021, 09:58:54 AM
Found a couple of links, hopefully they can help:
- https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/204975844-EdgeRouter-Interface-Bonding
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/cc0gx9/wan_port_bonding_edgerouter4/etkgex7/

Besides, should your ISP provide some support on this?
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: Craig on June 30, 2021, 10:32:46 AM
Both of those posts reference 802.3ad - which is for interface bonding (between 2 devices) not PPPoE (per-packet) bonding.

AAISP do have various configurations on their wiki for Mikrotik/Firebrick routers but not sure if these will work/cover any ER specific config options.
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: jelv on June 30, 2021, 11:35:07 AM
Have you asked on their irc?
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: Craig on June 30, 2021, 11:39:39 AM
I did ask last night but didn't really get any response other than "Ask support".... I'll ask again today while it's a bit busier.
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: jelv on June 30, 2021, 11:43:53 AM
Asking during the day is better as you may get the right member of staff pick it up.
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: Craig on June 30, 2021, 12:44:26 PM
Fingers crossed. I did email support and ask, and they said they only have guides for the Firebrick; and pointed me to IRC...  ::)
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: Weaver on June 30, 2021, 07:45:58 PM
I am bonding the upstream but that’s with a Firebrick FB2900, which ‘just works’ with several PPPoE objects defined, so I am no use.

The ‘brick picks up the link speeds by looking for a PPPoE connect time message from AA which contains the BBEU ID and the speeds as <downstream> / <upstream> and then sets the traffic split ratio for upstream accordingly for each of the links.

In the case of a router that doesn’t have this very new clever interaction with AA, you need to use per-link IP PDU rate settings for each link. Doing so was always a pain because in the past with a Firebrick because the settings become outdated every time the upstream speeds change. The (very) new way of doing it with a Firebrick is to let the Firebrick just calculate the speeds from the method described earlier, and you set an "auto-percent" attribute value in the config to specify the link protocol efficiency - which is used to convert sync rates into IP PDU rates. I’m using ADSL which has a lot of byte overhead/bloat (protocol efficiency about 88%, for ADSL2, and I set each IP PDU rate to 95% of this = 84% for each link). Without this technology you will have to keep an eye on the individual link upstream speeds and will possibly have to adjust your router’s per-link rates from time to time. For FTTC/VDSL2 an IP PDU rate set to 95% of 97% of sync rate might be a reasonable place to start and then experiment with turning the speeds up/down a bit until you get the best results.

But detailed config is down to your router mfr’s tech support and docs.
Title: Re: AAISP line bonding with an EdgeRouter-4
Post by: andrew-AAISP on July 01, 2021, 08:22:59 AM
Weaver is right... you'd need to check the manuals/support of your device :-)

We do have various guides and info on bonding here: https://support.aa.net.uk/Category:Bonding

But all we have on the edgerouter is a basic setup: https://support.aa.net.uk/Router:Ubiquiti_EdgeRouter_Lite

As for bonding, we'd take care of sending packets TO you over the multiple lines, and your device would just need to manage the sending packets to us... So, you could 50/50 NAT the traffic up, and we send per-packet to you - as long as the edgerouter accepts our traffic! (You may want to ask us to set the WAN address to be the same IP on both lines in this case.) - but I'm not sure if the edgerouter would be happy with this....