Questions about the truenet probes for UFB

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Questions about the truenet probes for UFB

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#195926 12-May-2016 10:51

Just wondering about truenet probes for UFB. I’ve had a look on their site, however, the links to the files about setup of the microtik probes are not visible (https://truenet.nz/how-we-test) so I’ll as the questions here.

Can you just put it between the ONT and your router? Note – no wireless will be required as the access points are downstream from the router.

My connection has vlan tagging on. Will the probe be ok with this?

Does the probe detect the priority tagging for the voip traffic (I haven’t enabled this yet but want to in the future).

How transparent is the probe. I use vpn to connect to home. I also have my web site on 80 and 443, as well as use a few different ports open for various purposes. Will the probe interfere with this?

IPv6 is coming to my ISP. Any issues anticipated?

Thanks.

Sideface

9365 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1551392 12-May-2016 10:56

I suggest that you PM @JohnButt and ask him.

Sideface

hio77

12999 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

#1551393 12-May-2016 10:58

Personally i would hang it off your router. What your suggesting would require a pretty heavy reconfiguration of your network.

Realistically the detection the truenet probe is meant to do so it doesnt hammer you while your using the connection is neglectable on UFB.

#include <std_disclaimer>

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

vexxxboy

4246 posts

Uber Geek

#1551434 12-May-2016 12:19

i have the truenet router for UFB and have used it since i have been on UFB with 2degrees and the Fritzbox . I just plugged it in according to instructions and thats it. On Truenets website you make an account where you can set how much data you send. 2degrees use vlan tagging so no problem there and i can also use the Ethernet ports on the router as well as the fritz-box ones which gives me 8 and i have IPv6 enabled. I have never had a problem with my connection in the years i have been with Truenet.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1551436 12-May-2016 12:22

vexxxboy:

i have the truenet router for UFB and have used it since i have been on UFB with 2degrees and the Fritzbox . I just plugged it in according to instructions and thats it.

Cool. The instructions aren't visible so, does the instructions say to plug it into the ont, or, the fritzbox?

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1551437 12-May-2016 12:24

hio77:

Personally i would hang it off your router. What your suggesting would require a pretty heavy reconfiguration of your network.

Realistically the detection the truenet probe is meant to do so it doesnt hammer you while your using the connection is neglectable on UFB.

I was wondering how transparent it would be so if it would be an issue.

I suppose it probably wouldn't be an issue going after the router and before the switch.

djtOtago

1158 posts

Uber Geek

#1551443 12-May-2016 12:38

You connect the probe to your network just the same as you would a computer.
It is just a device that hangs off your network and occasionally downloads / uploads stuff from the internet.
So you can just connect it to your router as you would any other networked device. Think of it as a computer.

Jase2985

13466 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1551444 12-May-2016 12:43

djtOtago:

You connect the probe to your network just the same as you would a computer.
It is just a device that hangs off your network and occasionally downloads / uploads stuff from the internet.
So you can just connect it to your router as you would any other networked device. Think of it as a computer.

I don't think that's correct

its suppose to have all/most traffic going through it so it knows when the network is clear to do its testing

"Our probes are simply a bridged router which are connected between the Local network and the Internet, with all Wifi traffic going through the probe. "

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1551456 12-May-2016 13:05

and a somewhat related question being how does it respond to VPN/DNS geo-unblocking?

1) If its between the router and the ONT will it 'leak' dns requests or be able to handle VPN redirected tunnels happily?

2) if between my network and the router/ont, would it then try to send all its data via my DNS/VPN pathing and mess with their testing too?

Jase2985

13466 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1551587 12-May-2016 15:51

i dont think it would work if its between the ONT and the Router as it needs an internet connection to do its job and it needs a router/modem before it to achieve that

JohnButt

374 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1551612 12-May-2016 16:47

Thanks for all the good answers before I saw this :-)

On PhantomNVD's questions, it uses it's own DNS reference, to ensure we use the one specified by the ISP to be fair to them.

It only looks for "traffic" i.e. it counts the bits through it and stops testing or waits if the bits get greater than 100kb/s - i.e. a bit faster than VoIP so it will not detect VoIP unless you are using the higher spec protocols.

Your data will have Zero impact, the probe is way to small to be able to look at more than the speed or very small parameters.

For Jase2985, Almost right: we have setup the software to Spoof an IP address on passthrough if there is no DHCP and then use that to test, but it requires a lot of fiddling to use and I doubt more than 1 person is using the feature. However it can work between the ONT and router, if it gets a little bit of traffic first, it uses that IP address until it fails. We do not recommend its use due to the high probability we have experienced of it just not getting an IP address.

I am a little concerned that if someone were to use a VPN from their router for all traffic through the router, then all tests would be over the VPN and be fundamentally useless, but we have yet to detect someone doing this. We check individual tests every month using pattern recognition, which is very likely to pick that up. We also do a suite of traceroutes every hour - seriously interesting data but we do not have time to interrogate, we only use it for fault finding such as for this type of issue.

Anyone with information on router VPN use? It seems an odd idea to me, although I can see a value for a VPN that was NZ based.

JohnButt

374 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1551614 12-May-2016 16:50

On a related note, we are seeking more ADSL and VDSL volunteers, because many of our previous panelists have moved to Fibre. We would prefer those likely to remain on DSL for 12 months for obvious reasons.

To volunteer go here: https://truenet.nz/volunteer-process