Sky fibre and alternative router issues

Duke_

Duke_

Duke_

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Joined
23 Feb 2010
Posts
283
Location
Aberdeen
Morning All,

I have moved from BT Inifinity to Sky fibre unlimited. Speeds and connectivity with the included SR102 modem/router are fine (37Mbps /10Mbps). I am trying to set up my Openreach modem and Asus router so that I can remove the SR102 altogether.

So far I have extracted my username and password using wireshark and tried the calculation method. On both occasions the password comes out in a slightly different format to what I expected based on other posts:
Using wireshark: LNNLNLLNNNNL@skydsl|NNNLLNLN (all letters in this instance are lowercase)
Using the password calculator the password is displayed as: LNLLll+lNLLLLll Although the default WiFi Channel and SSiD are returned blank.
I have tried using ‘ around the username and password combination and using the password generated from Wireshark and the calculator (both the bit before and after the ‘+’ sign).


The MAC address from wireshark matches the address displayed in the SR102 settings. I have entered the MAC address of the SR102 into the Asus router and enabled MAC spoofing as it appears from the SR102 settings MER is active.

I have connected the Asus WAN port to the BT modem LAN1 connection and have a DSL light. I have not accessed or changed the Openreach modem whatsoever since it was used for BT. As a test I plugged in the BT modem and connected it to the SR102 (i.e. faceplate - Openreach modem - SR102 - PC). The BT modem appears to be working fine as I could connect to the internet no problem - could I be misinterpreting this?

I have tried setting up the Asus with the latest firmware from Asus and the Merlin variant – without success.

I suspect my authentications settings aren’t right or I’ve missed another step. I anyone has any suggestions I’d be very grateful. If you need any further information or clarification let me know. If there's anyone with an Asus router who's successfully swapped out their Sky modem/router it would be good to hear from you! Thanks
 
I wonder if removing the router from the network is an optoin here for trouble shooting.

Plug your PC directly into the Openreach modem - at the very least it should let you quickly try varying PPPoE credentials and configurations.
 
mine came out in this format:
Using wireshark: LNNLNLLNNNNL@skydsl|NNNLLNLN

Which turned out:
(MAC ADDRESS@skydsl)

Also make sure you're using the WAN mac address rather than the LAN mac address.
Although I wasn't too worried about this, and I haven't spoofed my WAN MAC and mine's been working fine.
 
Thanks for both of your replies.
@Roy - I've tried this but keep getting an error 651 while setting up the connection via Miniport. It looks like the PC isn't getting an IP from the Openreach modem and despite assigning one manually it isn't playing ball. I suspect it might be because I'm on MER and in hindsight I think the Sky connections are sometimes PPPoA rather than PPPoE. That said I'm well out of my comfort zone so may have terminologies confused.This forum suggests what Sky call MER is DHCP and that PPPoA isn't possible.
@Deathjester - good to know. I've used Wireshark to capture the login attempts when connecting via Sky Hub / Sky Hub + OR Modem / Asus Router + OR Modem. Looking at the details of the two successful connections involving the hubs the details match and the format matches what you've written so I'm confident I have the correct details.

Looking through the logs in Wireshark both the successful connections involving the Sky Hub there is a difference in the transactions (if that's the correct term) compared to the OR modem + Asus router. With the two successful connections there are are 345 (length) DHCP Requests prior to 370 (length) DHCP Discover transactions. With the Asus router setup I can't see any DHCP requests at all.


It's 00:40 and I've been changing lots of options watching Wireshark all the time and it appears to have worked. At the moment it's a fluke but I've saved the setup and I'll start tweaking at a more reasonable hour to find out what the trick was for others....
 
I'm clearly not out of the woods yet - I can get a connection but it's pretty unstable. Ping varies from 15m/s to 30 and download varies from 37Mbps to 27Mbps. MTU appears stable at 1470 then the next ping it isn't stable until I drop it to 900, in a couple of minutes it appears stable at 1470 again.
This is all a bit of a learning curve - any recommendations welcome!
I'm wary if I leave this unstable connection my line characteristics will start to be altered by Sky and the speed will drop rather than reaching the ~37Mbps full potential using their hub (it's just as quick using the openreach modem and their hub - just not with the Asus).
At the moment it's just the PC hub and modem. No other devices are connected.
 
You shouldn't need to spoof the MAC address if you're using Merlin. All you need to do is put the user/pass in to the authentication box for MER, save and reboot, then wait about 45 mins to an hour. Out of interest, which model of BTOR modem are you using?
 
Good to know. I don't suppose it'll affect the linespeed / quality but I'll ditch the MAC spoofing and retry.
The modem is the ECI B-FOCuS V-2FUb/I Rev.B
As I mentioned before it connects ok when using the Sky hub in WANOE mode so I assume I don't need to do anything (having looked at the hacking sites I don't really fancy it either!).
Out of interest do you know why you need to leave the connection for so long? is this just to stabilise after the connection is established? When trying to set up the Asus router using the wizard it couldn't detect the settings despite rebooting the modem when requested - then halfway through playing with settings manually and keeping an eye on Wireshark for DHCP and identifiers which never came it connected.
 
Thanks Booyaka.
Do you know if your hub was previously using MER or PPPoA?
I don't appear to have a 'MER' setting on the authentication page so I selected 'Automatic IP' from the WAN connection type. If you or anyone else recommends a different setting please let me know. As I mentioned earlier the Sky hub appears to be showing MER rather than PPPoA.

Asus WAN page looks like this
 
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Duke_ said:
Out of interest do you know why you need to leave the connection for so long?
Click to expand...
I don't know the official answer, maybe misschief can answer, but whenever I swapped the SR for the Asus or vice versa, it was always a 45 minute wait, you could even time it to perfection. I just assumed it was something at Sky's end that only allowed one connection at a time from the same username/password and as it saw the same user/pass coming from a different MAC address within a short period of time, it was waiting for the lease to expire or something.

Do you have access to a HG612 BTOR modem instead of an ECI? Mine use to drop off all the time until I changed it.
 
Terrier_Jimlad said:
Do you have access to a HG612 BTOR modem instead of an ECI? Mine use to drop off all the time until I changed it.
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that, I was just eying one up on eBay. I take it there's no need for it to be unlocked unless you want the line stats? Also seems odd that using the SR and ECI modem is fine but it's worth a try for £20.
 
Seems lot of faffing around - I bought a TD-W9980 for £60, out the box it works with ADSL and a quick firmware update works with Sky Fibre. Dual band, 1gig ports etc - all in one solution.

All this connection modem to a router etc seems OTT - maybe that's just me mind you. Unless I'm missing something.
 
You're right, it's an awful lot of faffing around and it's taken a lot of time. On the other hand it should work and I'm wary that if I ditch the Asus router and try something else that may not work, incurring additional time, frustration and expense. At least if I succeed with this I'll have the multi client router performance I'm looking for.
It turned into a bit of an obsession and has definitely gone beyond the effort/price/performance point I was hoping for though!
 
One of the benefits (albeit there is not that many) of having a separate BTOR modem and router is, you can reboot the router and mess with the config as much as you like without having to touch the modem, so you're line isn't effected.

The minute you go back to one device, you have to be cautious of the amount of reboots you do so that DLM doesnt kick in with your line
 
Hope this helps - screenshot of my ASUS router settings using Sky Fibre. I also have a HG612 modem connected downstairs. Just mirror these and it should work fine, note I am using the Merlin firmware which I'm unsure whether you need due to the MER authentication which Sky uses.

The Google DNS (8.8.8.8) are entirely up to you, I prefer to use them over Sky's DNS. Lastly, there is no ' before or after my user/password either. I didn't clone my old MAC address either, just used the default ASUS WAN and it syncs fine.


TuaRmBw.png
 
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Hi Sparx - thanks for the such a helpful post. Despite getting a connection the other night I've changed the settings to mirror yours. The connection is still slower than with the Sky Hub by ~5Mbps but the ping is much lower (10ms vs 30ms with the SR hub). I've got an HG612 modem headed in my direction which will hopefully sort the issues - if not it'll provide some entertainment checking with line stats and firmware.
 
Duke_ said:
Hi Sparx - thanks for the such a helpful post. Despite getting a connection the other night I've changed the settings to mirror yours. The connection is still slower than with the Sky Hub by ~5Mbps but the ping is much lower (10ms vs 30ms with the SR hub). I've got an HG612 modem headed in my direction which will hopefully sort the issues - if not it'll provide some entertainment checking with line stats and firmware.
Click to expand...

I lose around 8mb with my TP link router over the SR102 sky one. I get around 63 down and 19 up with SR102 and 56 down/16 up with TP link. However happy to give up the extra bit of speed over the improved wireless coverage and gigabit ports on the tp link
 
Duke_ said:
Hi Sparx - thanks for the such a helpful post. Despite getting a connection the other night I've changed the settings to mirror yours. The connection is still slower than with the Sky Hub by ~5Mbps but the ping is much lower (10ms vs 30ms with the SR hub). I've got an HG612 modem headed in my direction which will hopefully sort the issues - if not it'll provide some entertainment checking with line stats and firmware.
Click to expand...

Ah thought you already had the HG612 in situ. In that case, definitely wait until you have the HG612 fitted and use the ASUS as the router/wifi. Works a dream! :)
 
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