Suggestion to add PPPoE testing to router tests

[Jamy]

Hi,

Would it be possible to have PPPoE testing added to router tests? With Centurylink using PPPoE on gigabit home connections it is becoming an important feature to have and many routers don't do it well, it would be helpful to have some level of real world testing of this functionality.

Thanks,

 

[thiggins]

Would it be possible to have PPPoE testing added to router tests? With Centurylink using PPPoE on gigabit home connections it is becoming an important feature to have and many routers don't do it well, it would be helpful to have some level of real world testing of this functionality.

Not likely since this would require a PPPoE emulator of some sort to form the other end of the WAN connection.

What do you mean "many routers don't do it well"?

 

[RMerlin]

Not likely since this would require a PPPoE emulator of some sort to form the other end of the WAN connection.

A PPPoE concentrator can be configured under Linux, using the well-known rp-pppoe package. It would require a bit of configuration tho, if you want to also be able to route traffic through it to test the router's throughput performance.

I've done a similar setup in the past to test a few things, but I never did a complete setup that involved routing traffic - I was only testing PPPoE authentication at the time.

An ideal test setup would be a PC like a Qotom with multiple NICs. One would be setup to listen to PPPoE requests, and another NIC configured to reach the lan (or whatever network hosts the iperf/httpd/etc... test servers).

What do you mean "many routers don't do it well"?

Some routers lack hardware acceleration when using PPP/PPPoE/PPTP. Broadcom added it to their previous SDK generation at some point, but I don't think they did (yet) to their newer HND platform. Some people who bought the RT-AX88U were disappointed to discover that they couldn't get anywhere close to 1 Gbps with their PPPoE-based ISP.

No idea where Qualcomm stands in this regard.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the details Merlin. But it's unlikely I'm going to add the test. In fact, I'm considering going back to simple iperf3 based wired routing throughput tests for the next version of router test process.

The tests I added for bufferbloat and HTTP-based testing haven't really found significant differences, at least not for unencrypted WAN connection methods.

 

[hedly]

I've read some reviews of routers with PoE and some customers said that there wasn't enough power to run a camera or other such devices. Would it be possible that someone here could build a bread board with a potentiometer that would be rotated until the max current draw was reached. Maybe this would damage the router/switch. Anyway, it would be an interesting test to verify vendors' claims. But we understand you trying to simplify things, Tim.

 

[thiggins]

I've read some reviews of routers with PoE

I'm not aware of any. I thought we were talking about PPPoE.

 

[hedly]

Gosh...ignore me. I saw 'POE' in my head and was thinking power over Ethernet. I should learn to read things twice on days i've given blood. I guess being a quart low makes me miss things.

Thanks for being kind to my obvious flub.