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3G service with SDX 621X and OPNsense

fizzyade

Casual Member
Hi,

I've been on CF 3G for 6 or so months and I've had no major problems over that time, apart from if you need to ask support something, they are abysmal, I have not had a single email replied to, I digress though.

Prior to joining CF I was on the VM business service (VOOM 500) and I had been using OPNSENSE with a configuration that managed VPN endpoints split-dns and a whole load of other stuff, way beyond anything that the supplied Zyxel could do.

Since installation I have tried several times to get my OPNsense working with CF but I've failed horribly every time, I have a mixture of mikrotik switches handling 10G fibre around the house and UniFi running my wireless network with AP's in each room since our London house seems to have walls made of lead, I had to put an AP in the garden because we couldn't get service through the house walls when outside.

Initially I put the Zyxel in it's modem (bridge) mode and it kind of worked but something was horribly wrong, the WAN was timing out and I was seeing huge packet loss, and I had to press the reset button to get it out of modem mode since I was unable to access the GUI, and after doing that the service went down for 24 hours, live support chat told me that I shouldn't have factory reset and that my configuration had been lost and that they would need to send an engineer out to rectify it.

Nearly 24 hours after this, it sprang back into life a router and the connection was back up, but given the packet loss (which could have been unlucky timing) and the subsequent outage I have stayed clear of trying modem mode again because I rely on my connection.

I have read in various places that I should be able to connect OPNsense up to the Adtran 621X and dispense with the Zyxel and go back to my original configuration where I OPN sense was my gateway with a 10G SFP+ connection between the NUC running OPNsense and the Adtran simply by selecting DHCP on the WAN interface.

Again, I've tried this many times over and I never get an IP address and therefore I have no internet, I've read about setting the MAC address on the WAN to the same one that the Zyxel uses, but again, this has never worked for me.

I see on here people having success but I just have never got this to work, I don't know why it doesn't work for me, I've even seen people connect a computer directly to the Adtran to prove it works, but again, this has never worked for me either.

I have a number of SFP+ 10Gbase-T modules and I can see the link is correctly negoitated in all cases, I just don't get to a point where packets start routing.

So what am I missing here? Are there people here who have a SDX 621X connected and working with OPNsense, and if so, how is the WAN configured?

I'm badly missing the stuff that I have set up with OPNsense, it was a well oiled machine, but the wheels fell off and while I've lived with that, I'd really like to get back to a solution that works.

Thanks
 
This is very interesting to me since while I am slight different configuration I may be soon moving to the 3Gb service so I hope there is no stupid restriction there. I have the 1Gb service with the Adtran connected to my pfSense box (Netgate 6100) via Cat 6 cable. I had no problems at all getting a connection from the Netgate and simply using DHCP. I have also connected a laptop directly to the Adtran and got the public IP on the laptop USB adapter. Do keep in mind that you might need to reboot the Adtran but that's about it.

Your symptoms seem to suggest the Adtran is blocking your connection and the fact not even a computer connected to the Adtran works strongly confirms that. Now looking at the 621X documentation I can see that it supports "802.1x Authentication". This is exactly the protocol that performs port-based network access control and that simply cloning the MAC address will not bypass. However I don't see "802.1x Authentication" listed as a feature in the Zyxel AX7501 datasheet. Is that the router that you got?

My suggestion will be to connect a computer directly to the Adtran and do a packet capture with Wire Shark. Then try to see if you can detect whether "802.1x Authentication" is present or whether you see anything else that shouldn't be there.

Another tack could be to see if you can connect to CF using another Adtran ONT. Are these authenticated? I don't think so. I don't see any 10G ONTs as these are in short supply so I suspect CF does get them back from former customers but there are plenty 1Gb versions for less than £25 (see here). Or you could ask a friend and neighbour to use their ONT in your house to do a quick test and confirm whether it's the 3Gb ONT that's blocking you.
 
I found this thread which has an interesting post:

"I did cause an issue though where DHCP stopped and I had to call Tech support about it. Finally got them to clear the Mac addresses which allowed me to get back online."

That seems to suggest CF are doing MAC address filtering and that a reset might help you. But looks neither Customer Services nor Networks are good so your chances of getting this done might depend on who picks your case...
 
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