MLPPP Bonding How-To

[CeoOfKFC]

Hi, I just got TekkSavy and want to use MLPPP using 1 DSL connection for anti throttling only. Do I need to do the same except with 1 line?

[guspaz]

@CeoOfKFC Yes, but keep in mind that Bell will be stopping all throttling in March, so after that you won't need this for throttling.

[sm1tty5569]

I'm just wondering, do u have to pay for 2 lines or are u only paying for 1 line ?

[guspaz]

@sm1tty5569 You have to pay for two lines, and your ISP must support MLPPP (it's a feature they need to enable on their routers, and it does consume more resources on their end).

[sm1tty5569]

@guspaz Alright great. Thanks for the quick reply and great tutorial :)

[jim786]

Two dsl lines. Do you have two phone numbers which enables you to have two dsl router?

Acanac provides it but I dont know if I should get two number or with one number I can do it...

[guspaz]

@jim786 Two dry loops, two modems, one router.

[TheAngryAmericanwon]

I know have two DSL lines as well, wish i could figure this out.. I be getting some sweet speeds right now.. So for now till I can figure this out, I be where I am.. I'd like to bond them together.

[guspaz]

@TheAngryAmericanwon Your ISP needs to support MLPPP, you can't just bond together any two DSL lines. It's a feature on the ISP's routers that specifically needs to be enabled, and it does consume a lot of extra resources on the ISP's router (way more RAM per customer), so not all of them are willing to do it.

[TheAngryAmericanwon]

@guspaz WELL then my ISP is the best, I do have two DSL lines. Yes my ISP supports MLPPP

[ne0nlightz]

hey guspaz, for resellers of bell dsl its possible to circumvent it with mlppp...but what about for resellers of rogers cable? If rogers was to ever throttle their resellers like tek savvy cable....what would be the fix for this? Since MLPPP doesn't work on cable. Please let me know!!

[guspaz]

@ne0nlightz Unfortunately not; MLPPP is pretty specific to the Bell case. There may be ways of circumventing Rogers throttling that are similar (do they throttle encrypted VPNs? How about PPTP?) but I'm not familiar enough with Rogers to offer any advice on that matter; Videotron serves my area.

You may have some luck if you ask around on DSLReports.

[ne0nlightz]

@guspaz thanks man! I thought I responded already but guess not. Much appreciated. I did this trick...I have a WRT54GS v2. I used the tomato/Mlppp 1.27 version, and the unstable build just like you said. Tomato works, and my wireless connection works, and I have it set at single link (since I only have one dsl line). But my question is that on my router, the WAN light stays on even when I have no wires (no ethernet cables) connected. Does that mean my router bricked somehow?

[ne0nlightz]

Respond to this video... I was thinking that its impossible that the router bricked if the wireless is working fine. I'm with Velcom btw...I was looking into TekSavvy but went Velcom because they offer Mlppp for free (but there's no support for it so you gotta set it up yourself). But it is activated at their line. The reason I was guessing if I bricked it, is because when I had originally upgraded my router's f.w.,it took forever to upgrade and it failed. I redid it after and it workd

[guspaz]

Time is money. Either you do it yourself or you hire someone like Caneris to do it for you...

[boigboigboig]

@guspaz Yes - but this is a RB750GL, and the 750, 750G and 750GL are all different. The OpenWRT/MLPPP is not clear if it will run on the GL. Mirkotik also sells a RB1200 which can easily handle 8 lines without maxing the CPU/RAM, but I am apprehensive to buy anything from RouterBoard now. Looks like I go the x86 route, but I don't have time for that. Ugh.

[boigboigboig]

@guspaz Yes - but this is a RB750GL, and the 750, 750G and 750GL are all different. The OpenWRT/MLPPP is not clear if it will run on the GL. Mirkotik aslo sells a RB1200 which can easily handle 8 lines without maxing the CPU/RAM, but I am apprehensive to buy anything from RouterBoard now. Looks like I go the x86 route, but I don't have time for that. Ugh.

[boigboigboig]

Hey - awesome video. Thanks.

Question: I have 4 DSL lines. The LinkSys won't handle the max bandwidth. I bought a Mikrotik RB750GL expecting to replace it with an expensive model when we bump up to 8 DSL lines the $400 model is available. However, the RB750GL is a PAIN to setup (Still not there - giving up. Not sure it is even possible.) Any suggestions on what router to buy that supports MultiPPP for up to 8 DSL lines? My time is valuable - so I want something that works!

Thanks.

[guspaz]

@boigboigboig OpenWRT/MLPPP should run on the RB750, and it's pretty painless to set up. If you're going to 8 lines, your only options are probably Linux/MLPPP or OpenWRT/MLPPP on generic x86 hardware, or something high-end from Cisco (which doesn't do the best job managing bundles).

[TheAppleRock]

how come my MLPPP option is not showing up!! 1.28V

[guspaz]

@TheAppleRock My assumption would be that, since the latest version of Tomato/MLPPP is based on Tomato v1.27, you're not running Tomato/MLPPP. Please follow the instructions in the YouTube video.

[TheAppleRock]

@guspaz wow that was fast LOL thank you! I'm a noob at this kind of stuff!

[Kevineatsbabies]

Is there tomato for the ZIO router?

[guspaz]

@Kevineatsbabies Not that I'm aware.

[rgh4215]

Followed instructions did not work. Waste of time..

[guspaz]

@rgh4215 What sort of problems are you having? There are thousands of people successfully bonding with Tomato/MLPPP. Remember that, to bond two lines, you need three things:

1) A router that is compatible with Tomato/MLPPP

2) Two DSL lines

3) An ISP that supports MLPPP bonding

[iOllieeHD]

great vid man, will i be able to get more than 8 mbps even though my exchange wont take higher with this method? also does this also lower your latency. please reply thanks.

[guspaz]

@iOllieeHD Latency is reduced a bit on larger packets, yes. It's reduced further if your ISP uses downstream packet splitting rather than round-robin.

[jmarco612]

vUnity provides Bonding as a service in Los Angeles. Google it.

[guspaz]

@jmarco612 That's great, but most people using Tomato/MLPPP are in Ontario and Quebec, rather far from LA. Also, vunity's website is currently down, so that's not very impressive.

[gengener]

thanx for your video! :)

[guspaz]

No, the v8 is not compatible with any custom firmware except perhaps DD-WRT Micro. It just doesn't have enough flash or RAM to run anything more sophisticated.

That said, DD-WRT Micro will still offer you a lot more functionality than the built-in firmware.

[Hasanfaleh]

I was trying to download Tomato firmware to my Linksys WRT54G V8 but always giving me fail. is it working on this model? I had reseted the router and updated the original firmware to the latest one 8.008.00 still no luck. Please provide help

[HWGuyEG]

What is the most powerful router Tomato/MLPPP supports? I want something that can handle at least 3 lines... 4 would be nice, but not really necessary.

[svjug]

@HWGuyEG I would like to know how to bond 3-4 lines as well. This would provide a very nice speed.

[HWGuyEG]

@svjug

I'm now using quad MLPPP with a TP-Link router running OpenWRT, it works perfectly.

Thumbs up to Acanac for selling them already flashed for a good price.

Acanac said that thing can handle up to 50Mbit so it'll be good for a long time.

[guspaz]

@svjug You'll need something higher powered than a router that Tomato/MLPPP supports. Some of the hardware that OpenWRT/MLPPP supports might work, otherwise a linux box running Linux/MLPPP is your best bet.

[mesothelimastuff]

question for you.. I dont understand why the ISP must support MLPPP. Why cant the router just see two seperate DSL lines and just bond them, together. I plan on using two different ISPs giving me two seperate DSL lines, Will this work even if they dont support MLPPP? and if not then why?

[guspaz]

@mesothelimastuff MLPPP is required because otherwise there's no way to tell the ISP's hardware that it should recombine the two connections into one logical link. If your ISP doesn't support MLPPP, or you want to use two separate ISPs, you'd have to use load balancing, which is not as seamless a solution. You can buy load balancing routers, but Tomato/MLPPP won't do it.

[choda42]

Nice job! Is the setup similar for a single line?

[guspaz]

@choda42 Yep, just plug the one line into the WAN port and select "single link" in the dropdown.

[rexpokinghorn]

Would this happen to work if you had a DSL and Cable connection or two Cable connections?

[octoslut]

only dsl connections

[guspaz]

@rexpokinghorn You'd want to use load balancing then. There is the potential to use MLPPP with a PPTP VPN, but Tomato won't do that. I do hear that Caneris/Acanac's project OpenWRT/MLPPP (which is a port of our work on Linux/MLPPP) will eventually support that.

[sclek2007]

Thanks for the vid! If I had a linksys router with 10+ ports (lets imagine) could I bond 10 ADSL lines to get 10x the speed?

[guspaz]

@sclek2007 Theoretically, except for three problems:

1) No such consumer Linksys router exists

2) The WRT54GL's CPU isn't fast enough to do more than two, maybe three lines

3) Currently, bonding more than two lines with Tomato/MLPPP requires some NVRAM mucking about to set up VLANs.

[debiaptget]

If your router/gateway is actually a computer with linux on it, simply add "mp" in your file /etc/ppp/peers/dsl-provider.

Then, reduce the mtu to 1442 and it is done ! No more throttling.

[guspaz]

@debiaptget For one line, yes. If you want to bond two lines, as I do in this video, you should really try Linux/MLPPP rather than doing it yourself; Linux/MLPPP will actually manage the two lines, which pppd itself won't do a good job at.

[AznSlackerType]

Awesome dude, gonna go pick up a WRTG54L tmw

[mbern45]

So, will I need 2 separate modems to get this to work?

And do they have to be using separate wall jacks or can I split the line from 1 jack and run them to the 2 modems?

[AznSlackerType]

Well yes you need 2 modems for this to work, but if all you want is the anti-throatling that is in Tomato/MLPPP then one line'll be fine

[argrow]

I can't seem to access the site. Is it down? When will it be expected to be back up again?

[deburyak]

Hey guspaz, tyfor vid. very helpfull.

Dyou use 2 seperate jacks or a line splitter from your original line?

[guspaz]

I've got two separate jacks. When the Bell guy came to set things up, he determined that the demarc in my apartment is also my primary phone jack; he mounted a small jack on the wall below the main one and rain the wires down to it.

[octoslut]

can you use one jack for 2 lines

[guspaz]

One phone jack? Yes, if they're wired up right. DSL only uses two of the four wires in the phone jack (normally the inner two), so if your modem supports it and you wire the two lines up to the one phone jack such that one line uses the inner pair and the other uses the outer pair, you can use a splitter to plug two modems in, tell each modem to use the different pair (make sure your phone cables have four pins), and you're golden. I have two jacks because that's what the Bell guy installed.

[octoslut]

@guspaz

thanks man you're the best i think i am gonna go with teksavvy cable.

[sc00tz99]

Very nicely done Guspaz :) I see by the video the .bin firmware was > 2 megs. I assume that a linksys v5 or lower would be needed to use this firmware version? Considering the v6 or higher have 2M flash. :( I might in the future be trying MLPPP. I'd have to find another router with more flash memory before I do this though. But in any case nicely done. Seems soo simple to do, a caveman can do it! :)

[guspaz]

Yes, you'll need a WRT54G v4 or lower, a WRT54GL, or any other compatible router (there are some cheap Asus ones that are supported too).

[gipson123]

damn...so my WRT54G v8.2 is incompatible?? :(

[guspaz]

@gipson123 Unfortunately, yes.