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[adsrox0r]

Hello 

I recently bought a Vigor 130 paired with Google WiFi (Gen1) and wanted to be able to login to the Vigor to see line stats etc. I'm pretty certain there's no way to do that with the Google WiFi and I can accept that, it's consumer hardware designed to 'just work' a'la Apple hence the lack of any 'real' router configuration.

I reflashed the Vigor 130 to use the alternative firmware since I'm on an ECI cabinet using an old laptop as per the instructions (Good job I did, it was not set to bridge mode out of the box!) I figured I can just whip out the LAN cable to the Google WiFi and plug in the laptop to peek at line stats if I want to.

What I was wondering though, would I be able to put an unmanaged switch between the Vigor 130 and Google WiFi, and connect my laptop to the switch 'permanently'. Would that cause problems?


Vigor 130
     |
     |
Unmanaged switch
   |            |
   |        Laptop
   |
Google WiFi
   |
   |
LAN

[burakkucat]

Welcome to the kitz forum. 

What I was wondering though, would I be able to put an unmanaged switch between the Vigor 130 and Google WiFi, and connect my laptop to the switch 'permanently'. Would that cause problems?


Vigor 130
     |
     |
Unmanaged switch
   |            |
   |        Laptop
   |
Google WiFi
   |
   |
LAN

As to your query, I shall ask one question . . . Where, in the above proposed hardware configuration, is your firewall?

[adsrox0r]

Google Wifi is the firewall for the internal network.

[burakkucat]

Thank you. Not knowing the "Google WiFi" device, I had to ask that question.

Either a "Netgear DS104" or a "TP-Link TL-SG105E" would probably be sufficient.

[adsrox0r]

I have three or four spare unmanaged gigabit switches that I can use, I just wanted to check I wasn't doing anything 'dim' and risk opening a networking portal to hell.

[burakkucat]

I presume the laptop computer, by which you propose to access the statistics from the Vigor 130, will also have its own firewall.

[adsrox0r]

I wan't sure if it needed one, if it's connecting to the modem which is in bridge mode purely to access its webgui then is it 'visible' or accessible by any means to the outside world? Forgive me if that's an utterly naive question.

[burakkucat]

In theory, the monitoring computer would not require a firewall, but I always like to be very cautious with a new configuration . . . until it has been proved to be secure.

The switch (or hub) and laptop computer are ideally placed to perform a MITM attack on the data flow between the Google WiFI device and your ISP/CP.

[adsrox0r]

Thank you, I think the risk should be minimal since the 'monitoring laptop' won't be turned on 24/7 it will simply be powered up to briefly peek at linestats so the risk of it being compromised and used as a zombie attack host are negligible........in my humble opinion.

Forgive me for turning this into the post of a thousand irritating questions, if you would perhaps indulge me....

I'm confused as to how the far end error second count can be as high as it is given that the uptime was 17 hours? This can only be a max of 86400 no? And surely if it was THIS high I would have a completely unusable line? Are the far end stats cumulative reported to the modem from the dslam end? (For ref, this has always been a VERY stable line and never drops. My previous uptime record on other hardware was something like 8 months)

[burakkucat]

I'll be very honest and say that the Draytek way of presenting the statistics of an xDSL circuit utterly confuses me.

xTU-C -- "xDSL Transceiver Unit Central office end" -- "Far End" -- Downstream (relative to you)
xTU-R -- "xDSL Transceiver Unit Remote end" -- "Near End" -- Upstream (relative to you)

In certain places Draytek use "Far End" & "Near End", in other places they used "xTU-C" & "xTU-R" and then also "Downstream" & "Upstream". It is almost as if they want to be as confusing as possible, with added layers of obfuscation (as a bonus).

I'm confused as to how the far end error second count can be as high as it is given that the uptime was 17 hours? This can only be a max of 86400 no? And surely if it was THIS high I would have a completely unusable line? Are the far end stats cumulative reported to the modem from the dslam end?

You are not the only one confused. To me, those figures do not make sense. 

Perhaps we have a member who is able to convert Draytek confusion into something understandable? 

[adsrox0r]

Confirmed, 'Far End' refers to the node and gives the accumulated data it stores. What isn't specified is what time frame this refers to.....which is rather irksome.

https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/guides/kb-dsl-status-more

[Alex Atkin UK]

Confirmed, 'Far End' refers to the node and gives the accumulated data it stores. What isn't specified is what time frame this refers to.....which is rather irksome.

https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/guides/kb-dsl-status-more

For all we know it could literally be the lifetime of that ports usage in the DSLAM!
Anyone have any stats from right after a DSLAM reboot/firmware update to check?

[adsrox0r]

For interest;

I managed to hook up a Raspberry Pi 3b to the ethernet connection via the switch, maintaining the above 'configuration'. Configured the eth0 on the Pi to the requisite static for the Vigor 130, and then enabled WiFi on the Pi and fired up VNC server. This allows me to now monitor live stats etc on my desktop PC as though I were connected directly. It's ugly, but it works well and means I haven't got a laptop to juggle just to monitor stats.

Also, the stats the Vigor 130 produces are confusing yes, but I'm beginning to make sense of how it displays the information.

The first output from 'vdsl status' gives this:

Code: [Select]

Vigor> vdsl status       
  ---------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A/B/C) -----------
   Running Mode            :      17A       State                : SHOWTIME
   DS Actual Rate          : 53160000 bps   US Actual Rate       : 11802000 bps
   DS Attainable Rate      : 53219448 bps   US Attainable Rate   : 11796960 bps
   DS Path Mode            :        Fast    US Path Mode         :        Fast
   DS Interleave Depth     :        1       US Interleave Depth  :        1
   NE Current Attenuation  :       17 dB    Cur SNR Margin       :        6  dB
   DS actual PSD           :     6. 7 dB    US actual PSD        :     6. 9  dB
   NE CRC Count            :       52       FE CRC Count         :   135788
   NE ES Count             :       46       FE  ES Count         :   112213
   Xdsl Reset Times        :        0       Xdsl Link  Times     :        1
   ITU Version[0]          : fe004452       ITU Version[1]       : 41590000
   VDSL Firmware Version   : 05-07-09-0F-01-07   [with Vectoring support]
   Power Management Mode   : DSL_G997_PMS_L0
   Test Mode               : DISABLE
  -------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
   Far Current Attenuation :       20 dB    Far SNR Margin       :        6  dB
   CO ITU Version[0]       : b5004946       CO ITU Version[1]    : 544eb206
   DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR    : < IFTN >

Which refers to your 'total uptime' stats (On the downstream, upstream refers to the uptime of the node....even though it refers to the uptime on your end)

The next dump is available via 'vdsl status counts' :

Code: [Select]

Vigor> vdsl status counts
 [ Counters: Showtime ]
                  Near End        Far End    Note
 ElapsedTime  :   92992            92992 (seconds)
 CRC          :     52            135791
 FEC          :    446            805810
 HEC          :      0               0
 CRC_P        :     17               0
 CRCP_P       :      0               0
 CVP_P        :      0               0
 NCD          :      0               0
 LCD          :      0               0
 ES           :     46            112216
 SES          :      0               9
 LOSS         :      0             203
 UAS          :      0               0
 LOFS         :      0               0

 [ Counters: 15Min ]
                  Near End        Far End    Note
 ElapsedTime  :    424             424 (seconds)
 CRC          :      0               2
 FEC          :      1               6
 HEC          :      0               0
 CRC_P        :      0               0
 CRCP_P       :      0               0
 CVP_P        :      0               0
 NCD          :      0               0
 LCD          :      0               0
 ES           :      0               2
 SES          :      0               0
 LOSS         :      0               0
 UAS          :      0               0
 LOFS         :      0               0

 [ Counters: 1DAY ]
                  Near End        Far End    Note
 ElapsedTime  :   20224            20224 (seconds)
 CRC          :      9              64
 FEC          :     99             260
 HEC          :      0               0
 CRC_P        :      4               0
 CRCP_P       :      0               0
 CVP_P        :      0               0
 NCD          :      0               0
 LCD          :      0               0
 ES           :      9              59
 SES          :      0               0
 LOSS         :      0               0
 UAS          :      0               0
 LOFS         :      0               0

The first 'SHOWTIME' refers to life of connection. The second 15 minute bin, is obvious and the last refers to the last 24 hours.

Now here's where it gets weird. The last output section, 24 hours, sometimes shows the stats on the 'far end' as the 'showtime' stats.....and sometimes shows the correct last 24 hours. Perplexing, a bug I think.

Anyway, I can now keep an eye on this old underground line as I'm sure I've been rate banded for quite a while now. I had a BTO engineer out a year or so ago after I found there were errors on the line and my old ears were convinced the quiet line test wasn't 'healthy'. The engineer did the usual, replaced faceplate checked connections etc but shrugged and said 'it is what it is mate'. I pushed some more, in a friendly 'telecomms engineer to telecomms engineer (I'm railway) and he went off and spent an hour looking for an underground joint box that he came back and said was probably the issue. Unfortunately it went no further, his opinion was the line is stable and there's no way they'll spend a fortune digging things up just to bump my speed. (I get below the minimum 'guarantee' of 52Mb btw, PlusNet said I could cancel with no charge due to this but I said what's the point, it'll only be exactly the same with another ISP so I'm stuck.....oh well)

I also picked up a second hand HG612 to play with so that I can use dslstats for those lovely graphs, but I'm going to give the Vigor 130 a fair punt at it for a few weeks to monitor what goes on as I'm waiting to see some meaningful error second counts to determine if the DLM should really be playing a bit more fair or if it's dumped me at 'amber'.......

[burakkucat]

Thank you for that update with the details of your working hardware configuration. 

[adsrox0r]

Something I have been curious of; with regards to DLM intervention and error second counts, is it a total of error seconds both up and down, or is it just downstream error seconds that it monitors and decides what action to take?