BT Infinity Bonding Part 2 :)

[caffrey]

So BT finally got round to upgrading our old line to infinity (after a tonne of grief , but I won't go into that ) so our little bonding project started.

 

First made this :-

 

 

Managed to setup the Pfsense box fine I think - like this :-

 

 

and

 

 

However it's not working

 

In the logs I get

 

Aug 30 14:32:29 ppp: [wan_link0] Link: Matched action 'bundle "wan" ""'
Aug 30 14:32:29 ppp: [wan_link0] Can't join bundle wan without multilink negotiated.

 

Does this mean something needs turning on at BT's end ? Or were BT telling porkies when they sold us the line or have I got something configured wrong (eg eg MTU/MRU/MRRU settings ? ) I really know nothing about this, and I doubt BT support does either tbh ;p and there's very limited info on the net.

 

Weird thing is in a previous thread where I mentioned bonding I provided a link to BT's bonding service, however that link is now dead...

(http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/services/voice-and-data-connectivity-solutions/data/sharedband--bonded-adsl-internet-8965.html

[twin--turbo]

If you doing true bonding then service provider needs to have reciprocal equipemnt to run the bond.

 

If your just doing plain load balancing then it should not.

 

Rob

[andyrite]

is the WAN VLAN ID set to 101?

[caffrey]

All physical interfaces with no vlans.

I had nothing to do with this initially, my manager bought the line and did the initial dealings and i've been configuring or trying to the hardware side of things on my own bat (I've zero experience with MLPPP and there shouldn't be any need for it in this day and age tbh), my manager is adamant it's something on our hardware side and not BT's and i'm trying to establish whether it is or not and he's refusing to deal with BT again because they were a utter pain to deal with (It took them 2 months to sort the line out!).

[twin--turbo]

As I said, AFAIK the SP needs to configure their end for a bond, you normaly get a bonding box delivered which has x-lines and the SP looks after the other end.

 

You could load balance it but that's not the same although it may do the job fine.

 

Rob

[caffrey]

so basically BT sold us a dud it seems I wasn't privvy to the original conversation but we were looking for the cheapest speed increase we could get and apparently the salesman said buy BT Infinity upgrade your existing line to infinity and bond them, I assumed it was probably already preconfigured at their end per the contract but I've seen no paperwork at all - all we have is two modems, two bt hubs and two lines - I won't go down the load balance way as it could potentially cause issues with secure sites. So looks like i've everything correct and the problem is at BT, had quite the heated argument about this with my manager - fed up of it tbh

[twin--turbo]

so basically BT sold us a dud it seems I wasn't privvy to the original conversation but we were looking for the cheapest speed increase we could get and apparently the salesman said buy BT Infinity upgrade your existing line to infinity and bond them, I assumed it was probably already preconfigured at their end per the contract but I've seen no paperwork at all - all we have is two modems, two bt hubs and two lines - I won't go down the load balance way as it could potentially cause issues with secure sites. So looks like i've everything correct and the problem is at BT, had quite the heated argument about this with my manager - fed up of it tbh

 

Unless you can find some documentation sayin it's a bonded service then I think that will be the case. The SP would need to know which circuits are working together so that should be documented. I could be wrong though...

 

Rob

[caffrey]

I'm starting to think the original order / sale went something like this, buy a line now and you can bond it later and no costs or how was mentioned.

Asking around I think you have to use this service Sharedband UK Store - Step 1

I Don't like the fact its limited but seems cheap enough

[SchoolsBroadband]

I'm starting to think the original order / sale went something like this, buy a line now and you can bond it later and no costs or how was mentioned.

Asking around I think you have to use this service Sharedband UK Store - Step 1

I Don't like the fact its limited but seems cheap enough

 

Hi Caffrey,

 

@twin-turbo is right, to do it at an ISP level they have to support MLPPP. This is done on the ISP's LNS and also some special details need to be given in the initial radius session.

 

one of the downsides of MLPPP bonding is that if one of the links is slower than the other(s) then all other links will not be able to run at more than the lowest.

 

e.g 3 x links run at 2Mbit and 1 x link runs at 1Mbit then you'll only get 4Mbit out of the total quad bond. There are other ways to bond that we do which doesn't have this side effect.

 

We have bonded FTTC before and offer this to larger schools. Certainly bonding is great for rural schools, particuarly when they've got no direct BT fibre onsite already.

 

PM me if you'd like info on how to do it and equipment costs