SR102 - 3Qs: bridging - wireshark - DNS

I was transferred from BE to Sky (not chuffed about that). Performance was a significant down-step, but just usable. Kept using the old Technicolor TG582n router, but recently evening performance has become impossible (assume contention). Asked Sky to look into it. They insist that I use their Sky hub SR102. So swapped that in, am still configuring. Hit some significant issues. Googling etc I keep finding brick walls:

- how to config SR102 to use my DNS server? (I use pihole & don't want to have to config a dozen+ devices where I should be able to config the router).

- how to put SR102 in bridge mode? (so in short term, to piggyback to old TG582n)

- how to config SR102 for port mirroring? (so I can run Wiresharp again)

PS. I've stalled about movng to A&A as too many reports of over zealous interactions, costs, and pay-as-you-go model. Besides I want to see what I can do with Sky first, though finger is on the trigger.

SR102 no idea on DNS
Bridge mode - does not have one
SR102 port mirroring? Highly unlikely

The SR102 and Sky Hub are designed for plug and play massed market, not CLI guru use. Not sure what a SR102 would do to improve evening performance since router should not affect the backhaul network at all.

Best advice use SR102 show issue still happens and go back to using the kit that works for you.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Best advice use SR102 show issue still happens and go back to using the kit that works for you.

That's good advice.

I gave up with the Sky provided kit very early on and use a router provided by a different ISP several years ago.

Thanks MrS.
Yes my fallback is to revert to the old router.

Sky pro support say they won't diagnose or look into contention unless I use the SR102. Hence why I've been trying to get the most out of it.

I don't think any router of local config will help with contention.

I wonder if Sky can or will try to do something about contention.

I found that, with Sky, at regular intervals my TG582n will get in a jam and not allow browser access. CLI access has always been OK.

So I probably should upgrade to a current generation gigabit router ready for wherever I move to next.

Any suggestions. of a router that works OK with Sky?

That's odd. No such problems here.

My IP does change on a regular bases though and I swap between a public DNS and the router's one after each change to ensure my new IP is used.

Mine is fixed IP. Perhaps that makes a difference.

How does one config the SR102 DNS (meaning can we to our own LAN DNS)?

http://setuprouter.com/router/bskyb/sr102/dns.htm

In reply to a post by crawlin:

Any suggestions. of a router that works OK with Sky?

Asus RT-AC68U with merlin's firmware (very close to Asus firmware) makes it easy; see skyuser.co.uk for how to extract the id/password embedded in sky routers (or how to use the settings in your former BE router!).

As a former BE customer as well I just need to comment that Sky purchased the O2 broadband ISP which included BE (whom were tiny by comparison).

Static IP with Sky is no longer available to new customers - but on the upside, the Sky Broadband network is the first mass market UK ISP to provide IPv6 to everyone (the old BEbox TG582 doesn't support IPv6, which is one reason Sky want you using a newer router). (yes specialist ISPs like AAISP have had IPv6 for over 10 years)

The DNS servers on the SR102 (and all Sky Hubs for that matter) are hard coded in the firmware and cannot be changed.

I had scanned that site before. As far as I could tell, the author was rather clueless about DNS config on SR102, but perhaps she was just fishing for insights from the general public.

The general impression is, as Nighty1973 put is, that it is hard coded, so no way around.

This router is so not within my comfort zone!
As soon as Sky attend to the contention (if they attempts to), I'll go back to a more sane if ancient router. Then move on.

Next quest is for an up to date router that is configurable, and has some future proofing built in.

are you trying to say you was only recently migrated? As ex BE customers have been on the sky network for a long time now.

Also unless you on sky connect then visible contention is rare on the sky network.

I was migrated from BE ages ago, but have been remiss in not keeping up with the joneses.

I'm interested to hear you say that contention is unlikely (though I'm not sure what "visible" contention is).

My symptoms are OK performance through the day and night, then in the evenings performance collapses. Well to be more specific, if I open the url to stream live BBC4 radio, for example, it'll connect (the web page will come up) in under a second, and stream inside 10 seconds. But in the evenings, the page can take a minute to come up, and streaming may either never work, or it takes several minutes to start.

This is the same from OSX, Windows, Ubuntu, various versions, and a variety of browsers.

Moving from BE to Sky, performance generally declined but reliability other than enevings has been good. On speedtest.net download used to be 18Mb/s, now 14, upload 1.2 now .7 (for quite a while it was .3).

But for what I use it for now (I used to do remote s/w development, but now mostly domestic use) it has been generally useable. But in evenings it has become a disaster.
Hence looking into seeing if Sky can remedy their end, else I'll move.

BTW, although the forum isn't any tech support line, just for context, my setup here is one underground line, to one short screened cable to router, ethernet from there to gigabit swich and on (no wifi). Line Attenuation 29.0 dB 15.1 dB Noise Margin 3.1 7.7 dB.
No phones or other device on any line, or any interference devices near. So an ultra clean setup. And yes, I have rebooted everything frequently, and checked all connections. Package: Broadband unlimited pro.

Any clues as to evening attenuation issues, would be well appreciated.

Attenuation should be a constant, if its wandering around then dodgy router firmware or a very loose connection somewhere

You should set up a Broadband Quality Monitor to ping your router and graph the results which you can share. Contention should be obvious on the graph.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/monitors/create.html

visible contention is basically congestion, contention that affects performance.

Every consumer isp is a contended product.

Thanks BatBoy.
So far I've not got thinkbroadband's monitor working (only shows 100% fail). I have both ICMP pings enabled in the SR102's interface, and everything is running as normal otherwise this morning.

That seems rather unlikely, but I've checked right through anyway.
At least I can't think of anything here that could cause that only between roughly 19:00 to 21:00. Never seen this lag in the morning, daylight, or at night. Only the evenings.

PS. SR102 Router firmware has been auto-updated from
(20170117
Firmware Version 2.1m.3173.R
DSL Firmware Version A2pv6F038m.d24j)
(20170124
Firmware Version 2.8c.1095.R
DSL Firmware Version A2pv6F039m1.d24m)
in case that helps.

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Jan-17 11:37:30)

I wonder if Sky could be doing some traffic shaping. I'd hope not as I have a pro account and have used very little for quite a while.

So what is the evening attenuation value flipping between?

Have seen some obsess about 0.2dB changes which given reliability of the calculations/software is not significant.

I've been going by realtime impressions.
Such as BBC tv on iPlayer takes less that 10 seconds to come up (begins streaming) anew through most of the day, in the evenings it takes minutes, often 5 even 10.
This the same using Windows PC, Linux, and Mac.

I don't see the link between varying attenuation and the time for iPlayer to stream

This sounds more like another issue