Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 14:20 Post subject: Using DD-WRT and U-Verse NVG589 RG in IP Passthrough Mode
Since receiving the new residential gateway (RG) NVG589 from Uverse, I've had some instability issues with my home network. I am not setup with the bonded pair, which is the usual use for the NVG589. However, it seems that AT&T is going to slowly do away with the other versions of their RGs. Anyway, my network symptoms appear to be some battling between my Sonos system and/or my UDI ISY-994i home automation controller and the new RG. In an effort to isolate these devices, I’d like to place a Linksys WRT54GL V1.1 (running DD-WRT V24 SP2 Standard Generic Build 13064) behind the RG (RG in IP Passthrough mode), to act as router.
All my connections and testing have been with a Toshiba laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
I have to leave the RG as a DHCP server in order to service the set-top boxes for U-verse TV. It is unclear if both the RG and the DD-WRT router need to be on the same subnet or different subnets. I’ve tried both. In both attempts, I configured the RG as DHCP server with addresses x.x.x.1 through x.x.x.5, and configured the DD-WRT router with the static IP address of x.x.x.6 and as DHCP server with addresses x.x.x.10 through x.x.x.100. Again, I’ve tried this with both devices on the same subnet and with both devices on different subnets.
I’ve configured the RG in IP Passthrough mode and the techs with AT&T’s 2nd tier tech support have logged in to verify that my configuration on the RG is correct. I’m having a hard time getting DD-WRT configured to connect to my RG and take over.
I’m assuming I need a DHCP connection from DD-WRT to the RG. I connect the two by connecting a LAN port on the RG to a LAN port on the DD-WRT router. However, when I do this, any computer that connects to the DD-WRT router gets an IP address from the RG. When this happens, internet is passed to the connected computer. Obviously, obtaining IP addresses from the RG is exactly what I am trying to circumvent, so this configuration will not work and it seems the DD-WRT router is acting as an AP here.
I’ve also tried connecting the two by connecting a LAN port from the RG to the WAN port on the DD-WRT router. This results in the connected computer getting an IP address from the DD-WRT router, but no internet is available.
All of my attempts have been with wired connections only. I will configure the wireless side once I have the DD-WRT router acting as router.
I’ve changed very little with DD-WRT from the stock settings. I set the connection type to “Automatic DHCP” and configured it’s local IP information and DHCP server information. I’m thinking that there is more to do here than I know. Any help is greatly appreciated. When/if I get this working, I will post again with detailed instructions on how to make this combination work in order to benefit this community.
I apologize if I've left out important information. I tried to be thorough, but I'm a part time network enthusiast at best.
Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2014 20:42 Post subject: Still Looking for Help
No one here has setup a DD-WRT router behind this type of RG? Perhaps there's another post that someone could direct me to. I've done plenty of searching, but I cannot find much that applies to my circumstances. Or, maybe I just don't know enough about it to recognize it to be applicable to me.
OK, maybe then someone can help me with terminology so that I can do some more searching. I'm not sure exactly what the term is for the device acting in such a way that I am trying to achieve for my DD-WRT router. It seems to me that I am trying to create a router, which would then acquire its LAN connections via the LAN ports and the internet via the WAN port. Later, obviously, I will add the WLAN via wireless connections. Can someone confirm my thinking here please? Is there another page somewhere that has specific instructions for setting up the DD-WRT router in this way? I see a lot of instruction for setting up wireless bridges and the like, but can't find anything that addresses the LAN configuration.
I've already tried to configure a DIR-655 with my prior gateway (Pace/2-wire 3800HGV-B) and failed. Good luck and please let me know if this works for you.
default LAN IP for this gateway (NVG589) is 192.168.1.254 BTW
Performance was terrible after unhooking from the UVerse gateway and hooking through the dd-wrt router (WAN IP confirmed on dd-wrt status page). I had just come back from China where I was using my NetGear router and since it had been packed in a checked bag I feared maybe something happened to it during the long flight. So I hooked up my battery powered travel router (I use it mostly as a power bank now a days but it still works) and reconfigured the MAC address in the UVerse gateway for IP passtrough and that little crappy router had much faster speed test results.
Okay - flash my WNDR3700 Back to NetGear stock and test performance and all is well just like my travel router. My original dd-wrt build ran at 192.168.129.1/24 so after returning the router to netgear stock the wizard detected the subnet conflict with the gateway and changed its ip to 10.0.0.1 (I do hate that wizard it was just too fast for me to stop it). Since this setup performed well I reflashed back to dd-wrt (including a good 30/30/30/dinner) and set the IP of the new load to 10.0.0.1 to keep that the same during Troubleshooting. problem persists - clearly some service or protocol that dd-wrt does that others don't enable by default or even support at all is likely the cause. I confirmed IPV6 is disabled as there were some UVerse forum posts mentioning that. While it works the incoming data only hits as a spike (and bandwidth monitor shows it up at the 18Mb peak my connection supports) but it is only there for maybe one second. Then several seconds later another burst of data. My connection that has been reliably testing at 22 Mb with NetGear firmware only pulls about 4 Mb on DD-WRT and browsing with it is like working with a bi-polar browser. Uplink speeds aren't affected noticeably.
(-M and -s is on a Linux Workstation. I think it is -l on Windows)
MTU tests the same one either router. When hooked to the dd-wrt Router I have between 10 and 20% packet loss regardless of packet size. If anything larger packets have a better return rate. I let a few pings run (with -t) for a few minutes on the UVerse gateway and had zero loss with a couple hundred packets of various sizes.
And a useful note I learned -f on the widows ping command will tell you if it needs to fragment. On both networks 1472 worked (with about 10% loss on my Netgear box), 1473 required fragmenting and of course didn't work.
Pinging private LAN IP of the Uverse Gateway from a wired PC or from a console logged into the router yields a 6% loss rate.
So after some sleep I was like "hey dummy - why didn't you replace the cable or try a different port on the Uverse or both". So I replaced the cable linking the two devices and ran the ping test from the router to the gateway and had no loss.... Jumping for joy (and being ticked at myself for letting a cable cause me this headache) I went to speedtest and have unchanged slow interrupted download rates similar to the bandwidth graph above... Pinged from laptop to google and sun one packet out of about 600 lost. Put previous cable back to see if the 6 - 15% loss returned - nope.... So All I know for now is that I don't have packet loss at this time, but know it will be back - yet heavy transfers still suffer and it seems both cables are good.
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 20:48 Post subject: "Sorta Fixed"
"Fixed"... I'm not thrilled with the solution but performance is good now.
The ATT RG had setting for port speeds I was able to port lock the Switch port that is the WAN link on dd-wrt to 100 Half and it runs great. 100 Full is a no go as are 1G half or Full. Auto works but has the performance problem. I started at 10M half and got a solid 3Mb or so and then progressed from there - I didn't try 10 Full since 100 Half worked on the first try. IS there someplace in dd-wrt I can try to force 100 Full of 1G full to see if I port lock both ends it will work at faster than 100 Half? I'm getting 22Mb down so at half duplex that is probably real close to being limited by the link between the two.
I don't see a way in the GUI to port lock vlan2 (I think I am saying that right regarding wan being vlan2). How can I lock port speed of the wan port so I can try to lock the UVerse gateway at the same speed / duplex? Clearly dd-wrt doesn't play well with Arris's auto sense, but Netgear stock firmware didn't care so it isn't at the hardware level.
