Vodafone TV multicast settings on pfSense?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Vodafone TV multicast settings on pfSense?

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102 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#1112275 20-Aug-2014 17:56

@Kenkeniff - I think you still need to have 224.0.0.0/4 in your upstream multicast config.

Could you also post logs once you've added that?

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1112281 20-Aug-2014 18:01

kenkeniff: Perhaps you guys could provide a little more rational rather than just being 'dubious'; as to why a VM running on a Dual 6-core Xeon server with 32GB RAM, quad Gigabit NIC etc would perform any more poorly than a HG659?

Most of the internet runs on VMs, I'm getting full speed tests & latency (200/50 <4ms) from other boxes connected through pfSense and did have VFTV streaming at one point last night + HD stream on my PC.

If there is an actual issue with pfSense in VM I would like to know more however currently I think it's more likely due to my limited understanding of multicast and dodgy config.

To answer this question, personally my main rationale for my claim of 'I'm dubious about the setup' is thus:

Most physical router solutions off-load packet forwarding (and/or crypto) to dedicated hardware (and in cases of say Cisco gear, if don't use certain features (depending on the kit), even the ACLs etc will be done 'in hardware' with essentially zero drop in performance).

Taking the EdgeRouter Lite (which isn't supported by pfSense by the way, but uses Vyatta) as an example, it uses a MIPS (hence no pfSense support) architecture, and per one of the pfSense devs talking hypothetically about future support:

my one concern with this is that the factory firmware from UBNT has a proprietary bit of code that acts as a very fast IPv4 packet forwarding engine. This is how UBNT gets the "1mpps" numbers. I'm not going to support that, so pfSense will be "slower" than the stock firmware *at forwarding IPv4 packets*. Since the Cavium architecture dedicates a core to running that, pfSense will still make use of both cores, so it may be (with the multi-threaded support for pf in FreeBSD 10/pfSense 2.2) that packet filtering is faster under pfSense than the stock firmware.

Per my previous comment, at the very least I'm sure you are using VT-x, but as far as VT-d & SR-IOV (also sometimes called VT-c by Intel) (which your NIC supports by the way) the problem is, I'd be shocked if VMWare Workstation supports either. I'm not sure if ESXi supports them when run as standalone (i.e. sans-vSphere) but that might be an option. Maybe hio can answer that. The main thing is in my experience, GENERALLY... SR-IOV presented NICs offer extremely good performance, VirtIO-style NICs if tuned right often offer reasonable performance (but it depends on the task) and fully emulated NICs are pretty bad. (I've seen instances where VirtIO-style NICs in some circumstances performed better than SR-IOV NICs, so it's not always true). (Edit:) My main point here is offloading as much as you can to the physical NIC is imo the best strategy.

Lastly, per one of the posts, it sounded like you were running Windows 8 on this box, which set off bells in my head.

insane

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#1112282 20-Aug-2014 18:02

kenkeniff:
If there is an actual issue with pfSense in VM I would like to know more however currently I think it's more likely due to my limited understanding of multicast and dodgy config.

Only issues I've come across with running pfSense as a VM (on ESXi5.1 and 5.5) is when it comes to getting CARP to work in an HA setup. Think I had to enable promiscuous mode, and most certainly needed to flick the advanced option Net.ReversePathFwdCheckPromisc to 1. Think it was burred under the UserVars section.

Might be worth investigating that Net.ReversePathFwdCheckPromisc option as it's specifically to do with multicast traffic. I have no idea whether Workstation has that option, haven't needed to play with that in years

hio77

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#1112285 20-Aug-2014 18:07

nigelj:
Per my previous comment, at the very least I'm sure you are using VT-x, but as far as VT-d & SR-IOV (also sometimes called VT-c by Intel) (which your NIC supports by the way) the problem is, I'd be shocked if VMWare Workstation supports either. I'm not sure if ESXi supports them when run as standalone (i.e. sans-vSphere) but that might be an option. Maybe hio can answer that. The main thing is in my experience, GENERALLY... SR-IOV presented NICs offer extremely good performance, VirtIO-style NICs if tuned right often offer reasonable performance (but it depends on the task) and fully emulated NICs are pretty bad. (I've seen instances where VirtIO-style NICs in some circumstances performed better than SR-IOV NICs, so it's not always true). Lastly, per one of the posts, it sounded like you were running Windows 8 on this box, which set off bells in my head.

not sure if workstations supports it, but SR-IOV is supported on ESXi, although its a PITA to get perfect, its not just a click of a button, And does take client OS configurations to get there. - then again, we took it a bit further than just turning on SR-IOV when we did it.

on our 10G machines, we saw about a 5~10% raw performance increase in moving to SR-IOV.

Depending on machine, the Different Virtualized Nics do provide mixxed results too.

if SR-IOV is available, go for it.

As far as i can see, in workstations (i run 9.0), there is no support.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1112290 20-Aug-2014 18:16

hio77:
nigelj:
Per my previous comment, at the very least I'm sure you are using VT-x, but as far as VT-d & SR-IOV (also sometimes called VT-c by Intel) (which your NIC supports by the way) the problem is, I'd be shocked if VMWare Workstation supports either. I'm not sure if ESXi supports them when run as standalone (i.e. sans-vSphere) but that might be an option. Maybe hio can answer that. The main thing is in my experience, GENERALLY... SR-IOV presented NICs offer extremely good performance, VirtIO-style NICs if tuned right often offer reasonable performance (but it depends on the task) and fully emulated NICs are pretty bad. (I've seen instances where VirtIO-style NICs in some circumstances performed better than SR-IOV NICs, so it's not always true). Lastly, per one of the posts, it sounded like you were running Windows 8 on this box, which set off bells in my head.

not sure if workstations supports it, but SR-IOV is supported on ESXi, although its a PITA to get perfect, its not just a click of a button, And does take client OS configurations to get there. - then again, we took it a bit further than just turning on SR-IOV when we did it.

on our 10G machines, we saw about a 5~10% raw performance increase in moving to SR-IOV.

Depending on machine, the Different Virtualized Nics do provide mixxed results too.

if SR-IOV is available, go for it.

As far as i can see, in workstations (i run 9.0), there is no support.

I suspected as much, it's still (as I recall) pretty much the server NICs that support it, my main concern in suggesting ESXi was if use of SR-IOV required any paid-for features.

hio77

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#1112294 20-Aug-2014 18:23

nigelj:
I suspected as much, it's still (as I recall) pretty much the server NICs that support it, my main concern in suggesting ESXi was if use of SR-IOV required any paid-for features.

Nope, we run the 5.5 without a paid licence, on V9 VMs (V10 cant be edited with the legacy VShpere client, which you have to use if you dont have a paid licence)

the licencing system on ESXi is funny, its a constant game of cat and mouse really...

until getting to the 10G mark, the performance difference between using SR-IOV (atlest for our purposes) is so minimal that its not worth it the expense.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Yabanize

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#1112355 20-Aug-2014 19:52

Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

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Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Coil

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Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1112356 20-Aug-2014 19:54

Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1112380 20-Aug-2014 20:37

TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1112388 20-Aug-2014 20:43

Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Not likely. Different delivery method.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1112389 20-Aug-2014 20:45

TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Not likely. Different delivery method.

Thought so.

Are the same STB's used?

I recall when TelstraClear first announced the TBox they mentioned future support for internet video delivery

Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1112394 20-Aug-2014 20:48

Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Not likely. Different delivery method.

Thought so.

Are the same STB's used?

I recall when TelstraClear first announced the TBox they mentioned future support for internet video delivery

Yeah, Same STB. I think different firmware.

Yabanize

2350 posts

Uber Geek

#1112402 20-Aug-2014 20:58

TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Not likely. Different delivery method.

Thought so.

Are the same STB's used?

I recall when TelstraClear first announced the TBox they mentioned future support for internet video delivery

Yeah, Same STB. I think different firmware.

Interesting. Wonder if they would change cable customers to the internet delivery method in the future

Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1112404 20-Aug-2014 21:00

Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize:
TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Will this work with vodafone TV over cable?

Not likely. Different delivery method.

Thought so.

Are the same STB's used?

I recall when TelstraClear first announced the TBox they mentioned future support for internet video delivery

Yeah, Same STB. I think different firmware.

Interesting. Wonder if they would change cable customers to the internet delivery method in the future

No need for it to be :). Its just how multicast works over fibre Vs a dedicated modem and connection

ZollyMonsta

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#1112421 20-Aug-2014 21:20

TimA:
Yabanize: Call me a noob... but is what you are trying to do watch your vodafone tv from your computer (like that VLC screenshot)

You can watch it on your PC with the right IP's and setup. Just a VLC network stream.

Correction, you can't. There is only one test service playing movie trailers. All other services are encrypted and you must use the provided set top box.

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