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Author Topic: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A  (Read 11717 times)

michty_me

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Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« on: June 05, 2018, 10:24:36 AM »

I'm looking at going back to a two box solution after having issues with my D7000.
Looking through threads, It appears this device is the go to unit.
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Weaver

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2018, 06:13:15 PM »

Very pleased with mine. Have just bought four of them.


Am using them as modems only, so have no experience with router, firewall, wireless etc. Nor experience with VDSL2 usage, but there must be plenty of other kitizens who can comment in that respect.

There are a few on eBay at the moment and I think there is even a new boxed one. Watch out because one that is advertised has no power supply brick so you would have to find something suitable 12V 1A min.

Oh and use our own hero johnson's firmware.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2018, 06:16:14 PM by Weaver »
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michty_me

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2018, 08:40:27 PM »

Hi Weaver. Thanks for the heads up. I already put in a bid for the one without a supply but it got declined so just left it.
I have been in contact with someone on Facebook market place and bought a BNIB one for £40, Slipped him an extra few quid for quick shipping too so hopefully that is ok when it arrives.

Anything I should be aware of or special flashing advice (In a link is fine if it is already posted elsewhere)

My line is still banded but has been up for 12 days now. Looks fine as I have 1 ES over that 12 days!!!
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Weaver

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2018, 10:42:18 PM »

@michty_me God, you did well then £40 is more like a sensible price and it's a new one too. Well, done yourself. Is math a rinn sibh. As my next door neighbour might say, when he’s in a good mood, which he always is.

About flashing, it's really easy, no problems with it. An http upload.

In fact if you push something really bad into it and it will not boot afterwards, a bad image file that you chose to reflash with, then you can just do some kind of pin-in-the-hole while drinking a glass of water upside down thing, instructions are in the manual on the ZyXEL website, and up comes a web thing to let you recover and do another upload to put a good image in instead. This is possible because the boot loader detects the doubly special paperclip thing and fires up a built-in simple separate web server, and the boot loader is not overwritten when reflashinf so it is always left alone and safe.

Because yours is new, it won't require something called "clearing ROM-D" which you might read about, which is where ISPs have customised the thing so that when the user selects "factory defaults" it goes back to the ISP's custom defaults not ZyXEL’s.

Burakkucat, Johnson and others know a lot more about it than me.

Johnson has excellent updated custom firmware that allows the use of full-length 1500+8=1508 byte long messages (MTU) and I recommend you use that. A link to Johnson’s image file is in the latter part of the thread about this modem and "MTU".

As regards config files, the config file is in lovely readable XML, although it is extremely long winded. That is just an http upload too. I can give you a config file, if you wish, or you could ask Burakkucat nicely perhaps.

I didn't know about Facebook market place. My wife does the Facebook thing, I will take a look.

The reason I have several modems is that I have three lines plus I always keep spares because of the alarming frequency of equipment damage due to lightning strikes and GPR/EPR due to thunderclouds, given the extreme length of my line and the isolation and altitude.

[Unforgiveable digression: I am actually wondering if mine is the highest house in Skye, it is actually not impossible, now I come to think about it. Made me think, now, so I went off and checked it and I think there is one other place, that is ~20 ft higher up than mine, right up at the North End of the Island, at Geàrraidh on the east side of the Bhatairnis peninsula. I am it seems only a mere 367 ft above sea level. My wife is inconsolable.]

Anyway that is part of the reason for all the lightning, that plus the ~7300m long line length.
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michty_me

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2018, 07:00:45 AM »

Hi Weaver  ;D

I have been reading up on your threads the past couple of days to be honest. Some of which goes over my head but interesting reading none the less!
This is the first time I have used Facebook marketplace so you have to change location around the country and select the maximum distance. I think I may have found the only one on it from what I can see. I initially offered more but the seller lowered it slightly.
I've taken note of the ROM-D which possibly might need done. As far as I can tell, It appears like an unbranded device but I'll know when it arrives.
I've also read about TR-069 (I believe it was called) to kill the auto updates. Is that for ISP branded ones or would an unbranded one require this also?

I shall download Johnsons custom firmware this evening and have everything prepared for its arrival.

If you could give me a config file too, That would be great and very much appreciated! Shall I PM your good self my email address?

I now understand why you have so many modems, It did make me wonder if you were just hoarding them  :lol:

Now off to go and read the MTU thread and download what I need!!
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Weaver

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2018, 12:46:49 PM »

Sorry if things were unclear. I do ramble on, and a notorious windbag, it is genetic, on my mum’s side.  ;)  Do ask if you should need anything explaining.

TR-069 as you said is a system used by ISPs to remotely configure routers or modems and I think it might be able to push software updates into them too. You should not have a problem with it anyway if yours is a new one. In any case, it can just be turned off. I have attached my config file, which does just that.

* Note after loading up this config file the admin account’s password will become set to password1 not password which is the standard default. Username is admin as usual.

See attached, which is just a plain text file written in XML. (A stricter, more regular thing otherwise identical to HTML.) You can just edit it with a plain text editor, which is very useful. In case you ever feel the urge to put XML comments in it for yourself, I think the modem squawks then due to slack programming on their part. Burakkucat might be able to confirm this because I can't remember exactly.

Due to restrictions imposed by the forum on file names of attachments I have renamed the file to .txt. I am sure the modem doesn't care though. You might want to rename it to .xml for convenience if you have a smart editor that speaks xml.

Burakkucat and others will be able to tell you about the ”clearing ROM-D” thing, ie getting rid of non-standard defaults. It might be in a previous thread. You should not need to bother since it is a new one. To do the procedure you would iirc need to log in with the hidden supervisor account, username supervisor and I think the password should be set to 71ca956e after that config file has been applied. If that turns out to be wrong then Burakkucat might remind us of the procedure for digging it out of them modem. Just try that anyway.

Note for Kitizens reading this: no security worries about me revealing these passwords, the modems are not accessible from the internet anyway.

Any questions, I will try and help, but I am very new to this device. Burakkucat, Johnson and others are all old hands and will I am sure pitch in too.



Stop press : doh. I have just realised that when I saved that config file it had some settings in it which will not be correct for you. It is set up for my line, so the settings are ADSL2 only and you should change it to be right for you enable ADSL2+ as an option and VDSL2 as an option of course if you are on FTTC by ticking the tickboxes in the web GUI. My stupid fault.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 02:04:14 PM by Weaver »
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michty_me

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2018, 01:50:23 PM »

Thanks for the info Weaver.

Once I receive the modem, I'll have a proper look at it and see if I can think of any questions, I'll probably stick up a separate thread.
Is the config file just used for setting a connection i.e. I could create my own one which just stores my ISP details and settings I have selected from the GUI or does the config file store other information?
The config you posted just shows as a 0kb file and has no information included in it anyway.

The seller has stated the device isn't in his house and needs to retrieve it from storage so will be delayed in getting it already. We shall see but I sent the money by Paypal to be on the safe side!
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Weaver

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2018, 02:18:05 PM »

Something screwed up in the upload of the attachment. Try again now - I have edited the original post above.

Because it is also a router and firewall and wireless access point and forty other things the config file is absolutely vast with a ton of stuff which is irrelevant for use as a modem but would be used if you turned it back into a wireless router. So it has got settings for more stuff than the parson preached about.

When you are using any PPPoE modem only the router knows about ISP settings such as PPP login usernames and passwords. The modem knows nothing about these.

For our purposes the config file has DSL line type settings in it and these need to be right for you.

But it also still has all the settings that you can set in the GUI, stores everything there is in the case of this modem, so it also stores usernames and passwords, enables features, such as turning on or off http or https web admin access, admin access via telnet and ssh, turns on or off ftp access iirc, and enables SNMP management. The list is still very long even when used as a modem anyway. Unfortunately all the router and wireless related default stuff is still all in there which makes it all very long.

The config is readable text so you will be able to guess what a lot off it means anyway, and I edit mine with a text editor.

My three modems have slightly different config, they have different names and different admin IP addresses for ease of access, which is a nuisance, so I have written a program for the iPad that takes one file and can make customised altered copies of it for modem 2 or 3 just to take the drudgery and errors out of this repetitive process whenever I make a change to the saved base master config for modem 1.
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Weaver

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2018, 03:24:47 PM »

If you just plug the modem in direct to your PC temporarily to set it up then you can talk to it for admin purposes at the default address of 192.168.1.1. Your own machine will need to have an address such as 192.168.1.99 or anything in that /24 range provided it does not clash with the modem itself at 192.168.1.1 obviously. As described in the ZyXEL manual.

Now. The question is do you bother setting up admin access through your router to the modem or not, for example using a web browser or using telnet or to get stats out of it. If you do, be aware that you expose your modem to tampering from the LAN. You may decide not to bother with the hassle.

A PPPoE-speaking modem and router do not need IP addresses at all for internet access to work, IP addresses aren't used in PPPoE, it just uses raw straight ethernet only. Now if there are no IP addresses set up associated with the two cable end points or if they are wrong then that doesn't matter much as the modem will still connect your router to the internet. So nothing to think about.

So with the current config it should just connect to the internet without any IP config changes to anything, provided you have changed the config to enable VDSL2 and ADSL2+ because of my earlier mistake. PPPoE modems connect you to the internet and just work with no tweaking required provided the DSL service type is auto and it just auto-detects. There is nothing to do just to get it working because absolutely no ISP-specific config is ever needed.

Some settings that I have put in the config file are just performance improving tweaks for my line and I should have put them back to defaults, so it will work with any DSL type by auto detect, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

In order to get admin access to the modem _through_ your router then some config will need to be done on the router. If you just want internet access to work and don't mind plugging the modem directly into a PC as mentioned above then there is nothing more to do though.

If you do decide to get access going through your router you might want to ask for some assistance on the forum because the how-to if it is router specific.

Btw the cable linking modem and router is always a separate LAN to the main LAN. (Unless your router can bridge that cable to the main LAN, that is.)

* There is an address 192.168.1.254 mentioned in the config file, which is the address I chose for the interface of _my particular router_ that is facing towards the modem on the linking ethernet cable. To get admin access through the router going, you might want to set up your router with an additional subnet interface defined for the modem to router cable and an ip address in that subnet set to 192.168.1.254. If need be edit the config file and change 192.168.1.254 to some suitable value within 192.168.1.* that is ≠ .1 as you don't want it to clash with that of the modem. Or change all mentions of the modem’s 192.168.1.1 address found in the config file to whatever you wish.



Also, I have just realised that there is a mention of an ISP-specific IP address in that config. The address 90.155.53.93 is time.aa.net.uk, the NTP server for the ISP AA. It does no harm but you might want to change it to something equivalent for your own ISP because that is close or else just delete it.

I can not get the NTP service working with mine because of problems working out how to set up the routing and I would have to use NAT too which I don't know how to do, well am also to lazy to work it out.

There is a very recent post in another thread about how to get NTP working and I would definitely recommend you look at that and try out those changes.
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johnson

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2018, 05:57:26 PM »

While using config files is probably the best way of maintaining a complicated setup (and great if you have multiple modems that all need similar settings), I'd say for the initial set up something a little less daunting might be better? Just to get a feel for all the settings without hunting through a massive text file. Like:

Update to latest firmware
Acquire supvervisor password
Clear rom-d
Reset
Plug a PC directly in and configure - Disable wifi, set up VDSL bridge/vlan, interface groups etc

Having a GUI to do the VDSL settings, interface groups and the like will probably lead to understanding them better than fields in an XML file, no?


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spring

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2018, 07:05:45 PM »

Better find the supervisor password before upgrading firmware as you will be able to use dumpmdm in telnet which is the simplest and ofc  you'll know what password your device always generates to replace the default password of zyad1234

If your device was a branded one and also happend to have ROM-D restrictions that got in the way, then you can upload a config file to completely get around ROM-D as if it doesn't exist, and for that you can simply get the firmware zip file and inside you have the .rom aka the config that is the factory default already inside whichever firmware it belongs to, and you upload the configuration file as any other. Note you should get the zip file that matches the firmware the device came with [for example AAJZ.3].

ftp://ftp.zyxel.fr/ftp_download/VMG1312-B10A/firmware


If you use command prompt to send "dumpmdm" in telnet you'll need to increase buffer height to 9999 in order to be able to copy all the text & search for "supervisor" & find the password [you write "telnet" to start telnet and "open 192.168.1.1" to request login] :
https://windowswizardry.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/windows-features-enable-disable-telnetclient.jpg
https://www.isunshare.com/images/article/windows-10/change-screen-buffer-size-of-cmd-in-windows-10/right-tap-title-bar-and-choose-properties.png
https://www.isunshare.com/images/article/windows-10/change-screen-buffer-size-of-cmd-in-windows-10/change-screen-buffer-size.png
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 07:28:05 PM by spring »
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michty_me

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2018, 07:31:40 PM »

Thank you all for the piles of details.
I think for now, What I'll do is make sure it works when it arrives first!!! :lol:

My line is still currently banded due to the D7000 locking up and I suspect causing errors to be generated which then gave me a speed cap. That's my theory (I'll create a new thread for that)
My main use for it is wanting to set it up the VMG 1312-B10A so it handles the modem side of things whilst my D7000 handles the WiFi side of things for now.

All I'm thinking about at present is that it handles the modem side well with a fast but reliable speed and minimal errors but also able to access DSLstats easily.

Much like I had my HG612 prior to buying the D7000.
-Flashed the unlocked firmware
-Connected an Asus router and set it up.
-DSLStats worked through Lan2 (I believe thinking back long ago)

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spring

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2018, 10:27:19 PM »

https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,21532.0.html



ROM-D is cleared when you log in with supervisor-only at 192.168.1.1 on the web browser, you'd see a Clean option in the ROM-D tab at Management>Configuration , or send "save_default clean" in telnet as admin/supervisor [browser better, supervisor better].
Edit: After clearing ROM-D perform a pin-reset in the same boot session [restarts count as a different session].


"best firmware" [me and weaver are using 1312-B10A-from-zyxel-jumboframes-3925adsl_phy.bin, I have no problems so far and only gains]: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,21273.msg373268.html#msg373268
I'm fairly sure it has the same configuration file as original v14 embedded in it, in case you want to flash to it first, in fact from my findings I have found the password to be in plain text on v14.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 11:08:50 PM by spring »
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michty_me

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2018, 07:49:08 AM »

Ok thanks for the tips.

Once I receive the device.
I'll start off by getting the firmware which Weaver and yourself had posted in the link from Johnson then follow the steps Johnson suggested in his earlier post. What is the difference between the two 1312 firmwares? Is one ADSL and one VDSL?

My only concern is that I'm unsure if I want to swap to the 1312-B10A just now as I'm trying to keep as much uptime as possible due to a previous issue I have experienced with my current setup.
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spring

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Re: Looking for a ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A
« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2018, 08:50:11 AM »

I think you should swap it if the current one ran for over 2 weeks, turning it off from the button after you prepared the transition but waiting 35 minutes before turning on the b10a hooked to the dsl socket.

The difference in his post is one is with a mod that updated the dsl driver and one has just the +8 mtu [jumboframes] mod. I recommend using the name I mentioned. About telnet sessions, if you need more than 1 at a time you can instead take the similarly named mod from page 11 on that thread.

About firmware I suggest you simply log in telnet first, once you connected a LAN cable to it, with user "admin" pass "1234" and write "dumpmdm" and see if it works, if not simply upload configuration .rom file from the firmware that matches your device in the web GUI, then it would work, and login with the password in the browser, clear rom-d and pin reset, and flash the firmware on the web browser then reset another time at Management>Configuration and you can use the gui to configure it. you should only edit the config if such an option is not available in the gui or alternatively telnet.

Also while the dsl socket is disconnected, you can test the bridge with the D7000. While connecting/disconnecting the DSL cable that modem should be turned off.

ftp://ftp.zyxel.com/VMG1312-B10A/user_guide/VMG1312-B10A_1.00.pdf

https://support.aa.net.uk/images/6/6c/VMG1312-B10A_CLI_Reference_Manual.pdf
« Last Edit: June 07, 2018, 09:30:23 AM by spring »
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