One for the inter/network peoples

[Dave20046]

Basically BT are sh1te, at our office I understand we've had next to no internet since November. BT have been sending people out to the exchange on a weekly basis, every few days they reckon they've changed the noise ratio to fix noise on the line or changed our profile. Anyway the guy that's been dealing with this has had an a bit of a pasting from the MD and wasn't in today...and I was by chance so ofcourse everything went down while I happened to be in the office so it became my responsibility. BT finally agreed to send someone to site (but no matter how much we shouted they're not coming until Monday) in the meantime I wanted to rule out the router* so I swapped it(kindly supported by RavingDavis...well he basically told me I hadn't got a hope with the cisco router I came across - so I sent someone to currys... but all the same very helpful) the router didn't fix the issue although it became a lot more stable, maybe it puts up with crap better, maybe BT did something at the same time I dunno.
So for now we have people using crap internet and important people tethered to their mobile internet.

Anyway,that's the story thanks for reading, basically I'm after fresh opinions on the matter as all I have to contend with in the office is the bloke who's been dealing with it for the past 5 months who wants me to fail and some eccentric nerd that keeps shouting about it being a denial of service attack.

Questions are; any things to try and fix the issue ?- but I'm inclined to wait until BT have actually been to site (for the first time unbelievably!)

An alternate internet solution? - We've had long ongoing issues with BT in previous years, however other ISPs will use their network kit and cable isn't available in the area. We're looking at a leased line from BT or alternatively some sort of dongle backup solution but it just seems mad.



*something that bugs me is none of the neighbouring buildings are suffering from this issue, hence wanting to rule out our equipment

[Bibio]

have you checked the cabling from the entry box to equipment?

[Dipper]

We've got broadband on 2 lines with different isp's connected to a dual input router running in failover mode, not as exspensive as it sounds. If this setup is of any interest pm me.

[Dave20046]

Don't different isps still use a bt owned lines though?

All cat5 has been tested

[Bibio]

Don't different isps still use a bt owned lines though?

All cat5 has been tested

that's great but do you run cat5 from the entry box to your modem?

if so have you checked the entire length of the cable from the entry box for staple piercing? it only takes one staple to mess things up.

[andrewsmith]

Don't different isps still use a bt owned lines though?

All cat5 has been tested

Yes

Depending on the size of your office, it maybe worth going over to Fibre optic and setting up a cabinet to host it.
Going that way would also have other stable potentials

[tigersaw]

moons ago I took advantage of mad March and spent quite a bit of money putting in two diverse routed single mode fibres from our cabinet to two different BT exchanges. Speeds wern't great but it was reliable. Its got nothing to do with me these days, and some muppet has cancelled the service, replaced it with a single domestic ADSL and got a pat on the back for saving the company money.
Sod the fact that someone on youtube grinds everyone else to a crawl.

[Dave20046]

Sigh, BT came out again today in my absense, showed someone a graph saying the router was too close to the network equipment (i.e a switch and patch panels) and ran off. Never mind the fact it's been in the same location for 3 years, anyway I relocated it 15 yards away (to apease them) and low and behold the problem persisted, BT will not come back until Wednesday.

cracking:rolleyes:

that's great but do you run cat5 from the entry box to your modem?

if so have you checked the entire length of the cable from the entry box for staple piercing? it only takes one staple to mess things up.

yes and it's tested okay


I've tried two routers and used a laptop plugged directly into the router (and everything else removed) and experienced the same issues.

[Dave20046]

Yes

Depending on the size of your office, it maybe worth going over to Fibre optic and setting up a cabinet to host it.
Going that way would also have other stable potentials

Fibre optic to where? the exchange?

[Dave20046]

moons ago I took advantage of mad March and spent quite a bit of money putting in two diverse routed single mode fibres from our cabinet to two different BT exchanges. Speeds wern't great but it was reliable. Its got nothing to do with me these days, and some muppet has cancelled the service, replaced it with a single domestic ADSL and got a pat on the back for saving the company money.
Sod the fact that someone on youtube grinds everyone else to a crawl.

At what sort of cost? My issue is 'BT business broadband was fine for about five years and now it's suddenly problematic...but only for our building - not our neighbours

[grimey121uk]

What kind of circuit do you have? Is it just DSL?
Wha equipment terminates it, how is it presented?

[Dave20046]

DSL to a router, to a firewall, to a switch to endpoints.

[grimey121uk]

DSL to a router, to a firewall, to a switch to endpoints.

Might sound a bit daft and obvious but have you hard set any port speed/duplex on either the router, fw or switch?

[Dave20046]

no set to auto but the problem persists when hooked up directly to the router (either router)

[SoulKiss]

no set to auto but the problem persists when hooked up directly to the router (either router)

I have know combinations of kit that cant auto-neg properly.

Try forcing the connections to all the same.

[qwerf]

At what sort of cost? My issue is 'BT business broadband was fine for about five years and now it's suddenly problematic...but only for our building - not our neighbours

The cost to have complete resilience in the fibre network from different BT exchanges, can be expensive if you don't any any existing fibre infrastructure in place already!

I think currently, EAD (Ethernet Access Direct) 100 is around 4-5k rental a year! But that's with guaranteed speeds/uptime etc, with only a possible few hours downtime a year blah blah. I've seen some deals recently flying around recently, but that all depends on how much you can spend on comms in the company I guess

[markc123]

£700 pcm should get you a 10Mbps fibre which is managed and has a decent SLA.

If thats hard to swallow, look to see if cable internet is available.

Re BT - first you need to find the master socket, plug the router in there with all other equipment off the line and see how it behaves - assuming all this is done and your internal wiring has been ruled out. Login to your ISP and look at connection history and DSL Max history - are connections up and down? Does the profile change lots? Whats the current Sync Speed and SNR? An other equipment on this line?

If you cant get BT to fix, cant afford / get a better service, then my suggestion would be to have a new line fitted just for ADSL, which should get you ne copper to cabinet. Make sure BT install this to the room with the ADSL gear in it, and then never use any other telecoms kit on the line.

Keep a spare router and several spare filters in stock.

I have the pain of trying to keep a internet dependant business going on ADSL as we are rural and leased lines are too much.

[markc123]

Oh and another thought - Kit like the Draytek units can support failover to another ADSL or a 3G modem.

[Dave20046]

Cheers mark, going to see what bt say tomorrow then either get a second adsl line or get a leased line if we can get a short term contract.

The routers built in firewall is showing 'syn floods ' and port scanning but I reckon they're false alarms, bt reckon there's no suspicious activity in the traffic. When the net goes down the router just logs atm1 stop ppp ... adsl media down

[Bibio]

are you running a web/email server at site?

[Dave20046]

We are

[SoulKiss]

Cheers mark, going to see what bt say tomorrow then either get a second adsl line or get a leased line if we can get a short term contract.

The routers built in firewall is showing 'syn floods ' and port scanning but I reckon they're false alarms, bt reckon there's no suspicious activity in the traffic. When the net goes down the router just logs atm1 stop ppp ... adsl media down

Could it be your Routers logs are filling up and crashing it?

Switch logging off on the router.

If I Torrent a lot on my Netgear, it needs re-booting sometimes.

[Owenski]

dunno if its makes any odds dave but some blokes from BT came here with a gizmo that looked like soemthing out of ghost busters when we had a silly connection. Turned out a monitor had a faulty power unit and that was the source of the interfearence, made a HUGE difference when they binned the cable.

[Dave20046]

Could it be your Routers logs are filling up and crashing it?

Switch logging off on the router.

If I Torrent a lot on my Netgear, it needs re-booting sometimes.



No there's not actually that many being logged ,maybe 1 an hour


Cheers Matt but they tried that one and the router is now sat on it's own with the same issue

[Owenski]

nO probs I assumed they would have just the whole "kill switch" fault sprung to mind. overlooking the obvious etc especailly if you've been getting bounced around BT reps.

[markc123]

The Drop PPP error seems to suggest that its a ADSL fault, especially if you can replicate it with multiple routers / filters.

I have seen both electrical equipment and water in BT junction boxes cause enough of a drop in SNR Margin to boot a line, along with all the other possible faults further up the BT chain. You could request that the line be moved on to a fixed 1 or 2 meg connection, which gives more headroom for these problems - slow and stable is better than nowt while you look for better solutions.

You tested it plugged into master socket with no other kit?

[Bibio]

it might be worth looking at getting hosting for the web/email server and use an internal on site server for logging in duties. this would free up bandwidth and also let you get a new dynamic ip address so potentially stopping DNS attacks.

[Dave20046]

Grr okay the guy that's been dealing with this for however long lied or didn't do it right when he confirmed it'd been tested with only the router on the network. Just playing elimination... I'm thinking it may actually be an issue with the server

[Dave20046]

Internet connection appears to drop* when (either or both) 2 out of the 3 servers are connected to the network. Running malware scans on them overnight, hopefully have the solution in the morning.... :rolleyes:

If that's not the case, but it is the case that the net still drops when the (clean) servers are connected wouldn't mind peoples thoughts, will probably start with a packet sniffer.


* would have liked to have tested more thoroughly but the opportunity was denied due to people wanting to leave the office

[markc123]

The internet should not drop based on throughput, the system is designed to place the needed margin for error in place when it decides your connection profile.

It could be your router having a bit of a meltdown when there is lots of traffic and crashing, would expect it to simply lock up in that case.

How are you running these servers? DMZ? Port Forwarding?

Can you put QoS or speed limiting in on your router?

I have seen connections crashed when uploading at max speed, which happens when you have outgoing email or are hosting a web server.

Hosted Exchange is marvellous btw :-).

[markc123]

The internet should not drop based on throughput, the system is designed to place the needed margin for error in place when it decides your connection profile.

It could be your router having a bit of a meltdown when there is lots of traffic and crashing, would expect it to simply lock up in that case.

How are you running these servers? DMZ? Port Forwarding?

Can you put QoS or speed limiting in on your router?

I have seen connections crashed when uploading at max speed, which happens when you have outgoing email or are hosting a web server.

Hosted Exchange is marvellous btw :-).

[Dave20046]

Port forwarding, only allowed ports are 80 443 25 1723 and are directed to Our server.
THe router hasn't reported a disconnect in about 12 hours but plenty of syn floods.

Something else I've noticed is if I trace route to BBC it times out at the hop after 194.74.65.42 , a Google shows the next hop should be 212.58.238.129, we can't reach this.

[Dave20046]

CHeap router doesn't have qos, the previous bt router may will check it out

[SoulKiss]

Hosted Exchange is marvellous btw :-).

You are lying

Nothing involving the word "Exchange" when referring to anything by Microsoft Products is marvellous.

Get out now, switch to Gmail and host your Web Servers on the Amazon Cloud :)

Its what I did :)

[Dave20046]

Bt engineer is insisting it's their fault , rare but I'm going to let him crack on with switching the line

[Dave20046]

Switched the line, changed the SNR and throttled it back at the exchange and we're working again...we'll see how long for.
I've now been tasked with making sure it doesn't happen again :rolleyes: cheers for the hosting suggestions going to explore those.
Going to buy a proper router with somesort of redundancy and get a second ADSL line fitted. For somereason the guy that's apparently been sat on the problem for however long is dead against getting a proper router AND a secondary line. Also as soon as we got back up today the eccentric nerd suddenly got involved and implied he'd been on the phone to 'someone' about blocking a DOS attack and questioned why there were (a handful) of open ports on the firewall..."erm to let traffic reach the server?" . Good old office politics, cheers for the posts chaps.

[orose]

There should be a law that allows you to thump people like that...

[Dave20046]

There should be a law that allows you to thump people like that...

I agree, just a case of classic geek competitiveness/insecurity they always seem to try and 'get one over on you' - right pain in the árse trying to work as a 'team' with people in IT.

[orose]

I just don't understand it, because things go a lot smoother when people stop behaving like children and work towards a common aim.

[Bibio]

Switched the line, changed the SNR and throttled it back at the exchange and we're working again...we'll see how long for.
I've now been tasked with making sure it doesn't happen again :rolleyes: cheers for the hosting suggestions going to explore those.
Going to buy a proper router with somesort of redundancy and get a second ADSL line fitted. For somereason the guy that's apparently been sat on the problem for however long is dead against getting a proper router AND a secondary line. Also as soon as we got back up today the eccentric nerd suddenly got involved and implied he'd been on the phone to 'someone' about blocking a DOS attack and questioned why there were (a handful) of open ports on the firewall..."erm to let traffic reach the server?" . Good old office politics, cheers for the posts chaps.

the part in red sounds very suspicious to me and if i were the boss i would be wanting to know who he phoned and why. your IT bod need fired as he clearly has no fekin idea.

slight derail.. i had a mate who works for a very large company with hundreds of PC's in daily use. it was time for them to upgrade to XP so he gave ma a phone asking how to go about installing XP on all the PC's over night. i said i would make him an unattended installation disc with a huge driver database so no matter what machine he puts it in it will just do its stuff and instructions on how to make these for his company and NOT to use the one i gave him or go about learning how to run it from a server with his version. guess what he done.. yup that right he copied and burnt hundreds of discs using the disc i gave him instead of learning how to do it himself. needless to say he had to do it all again for some strange reason :rolleyes:

yes i ****ed myself laughing :D

why am i telling you this, well sometimes there are IT bods who think they know what they are doing but in reality live of the backs of others.

[Dave20046]

the part in red sounds very suspicious to me and if i were the boss i would be wanting to know who he phoned and why. your IT bod need fired as he clearly has no fekin idea.

slight derail.. i had a mate who works for a very large company with hundreds of PC's in daily use. it was time for them to upgrade to XP so he gave ma a phone asking how to go about installing XP on all the PC's over night. i said i would make him an unattended installation disc with a huge driver database so no matter what machine he puts it in it will just do its stuff and instructions on how to make these for his company and NOT to use the one i gave him or go about learning how to run it from a server with his version. guess what he done.. yup that right he copied and burnt hundreds of discs using the disc i gave him instead of learning how to do it himself. needless to say he had to do it all again for some strange reason :rolleyes:

yes i ****ed myself laughing :D

why am i telling you this, well sometimes there are IT bods who think they know what they are doing but in reality live of the backs of others.

lol!

(like me you mean bibio? :razz:)


It's not suspicious the view I get of him is just a little 'odd', the net was fixed before he was connected - only when he realised it was fixed did he seem spring into action. I doubt he phoned anyone or he might have phoned a friend (...or more likely family) to ask for a recommended port scanner so he could march up and inform us 4 ports were open.

In fairness to the chap who's 'in charge' of this he has his uses, but he does have a tendancy to cut corners but the critical failure is he flaps under pressure and jumps to conclusions that things are fixed when he sees the slightest positive and doesn't want to know anymore. He's already forgotten about this hence questioning why we need a proper router let alone redundancy!

It's now become my responsibility which he isn't happy about and frankly neither am I, but I don't want it to happen again either.

[Bibio]

not at all Dave as you were given a problem that is not yours so you done the right thing and sought guidance.

[markc123]

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=5266 is what I put in in smaller installs, or its WiFi toting cousin the 2820n.

Gives you dual WAN so you can use 3g or another line for failover / load balance. Inbound dial in VPN, site to site IPSec, decent bandwith management.

Not had one fail yet either :-).

EDIT: Seems there is a new one: the 2830 with triple WAN. http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=10018

[SoulKiss]

Switched the line, changed the SNR and throttled it back at the exchange and we're working again...we'll see how long for.
I've now been tasked with making sure it doesn't happen again :rolleyes: cheers for the hosting suggestions going to explore those.
Going to buy a proper router with somesort of redundancy and get a second ADSL line fitted. For somereason the guy that's apparently been sat on the problem for however long is dead against getting a proper router AND a secondary line. Also as soon as we got back up today the eccentric nerd suddenly got involved and implied he'd been on the phone to 'someone' about blocking a DOS attack and questioned why there were (a handful) of open ports on the firewall..."erm to let traffic reach the server?" . Good old office politics, cheers for the posts chaps.

If you are going to do it properly you want 2 routers, both configured identically (or regular backups of the config on the live router), one in use and the other locked away somewhere safe.

That way if the router fails you can just swap it out and be back online.

Routers rarely fail, but for a hundred quid or so its a cheap way to ensure best uptime.

[Dave20046]

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=5266 is what I put in in smaller installs, or its WiFi toting cousin the 2820n.

Gives you dual WAN so you can use 3g or another line for failover / load balance. Inbound dial in VPN, site to site IPSec, decent bandwith management.

Not had one fail yet either :-).

EDIT: Seems there is a new one: the 2830 with triple WAN. http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=10018
Thatnks mate was looking at a Zyxel equivalent but may go for this as I've found draytek pretty stable and although I've heard nothing but good about Zyxel I'm yet to touch them and am still in a state of paranoia :)

Cheers SK, I've now got two spares which are currently working so going to use these as the back up units.

[SoulKiss]

Thatnks mate was looking at a Zyxel equivalent but may go for this as I've found draytek pretty stable and although I've heard nothing but good about Zyxel I'm yet to touch them and am still in a state of paranoia :)

Cheers SK, I've now got two spares which are currently working so going to use these as the back up units.

Zyxel are very variable - they are often the freebie with ISP's, so must be pretty cheap, our ISP at work upgraded our Zyxel for a Draytek due to loads of problems with the Zyxel.

[Dave20046]

Consider the draytek purchased

cheers SK