Combination View Flat View Tree View
Is it possible to host a PPPoE client on AXP that connects through the router to an external PPPoE concentrator?

PPP will require some kernel lkm's. You can port CentOS 5.2 lkm's and associated libs yourself. Cisco doesnt offically support it however.

Kernel modules and additional libraries may be required, but this all depends upon your topology.  Please provide more information about your authentication, modem communication and overall topology. 

My situation is as follows:
 
I have a radio terminal that requires one or more PPPoE connections (user equipment, like a router, runs PPPoE client s/w and the radio terminal runs PPPoE access concentrator s/w). Excuse the poor ASCII art:
 
LAN1 ______
                   \
                    \
LAN2 ----------- router --------- radio terminal
                     /
LAN3_______/
 
The PPPoE connections require the specification of the "Service-Name" parameter by the client - Cisco ISRs do not support the specification of the "Service-Name" parameter and I cannot establish PPPoE connections from the LANs. So, I would like to use a Linux PPPoE client running on the AXP to establish the PPPoE sessions to my radio terminal. The traffic flow from LAN1, LAN2, LAN3, etc. would then have to be routed through the AXP PPPoE connections. This is a relatively low bandwidth system - total throughput is less than 1 Mbps.
 
Authentication is via PAP.
 
Hope this helps and thanks for your time.
 
Bill

Bill,



Thanks for the detailed information. I¿ll look into this and get back you with answer/questions ¿etc.



Thanks,



Brett

Custom Application Engineer



From: Cisco Developer Community Forums [mailto:cdicuser@developer.cisco.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 2:06 PM
To: cdicuser@developer.cisco.com
Subject: New Message from Bill Carroll in Application eXtension Platform (AXP) - Technical Questions: RE: AXP PPPoE client



Bill Carroll has created a new message in the forum "Technical Questions":
--------------------------------------------------------------
My situation is as follows:

I have a radio terminal that requires one or more PPPoE connections (user equipment, like a router, runs PPPoE client s/w and the radio terminal runs PPPoE access concentrator s/w). Excuse the poor ASCII art:

LAN1 ________
\
\
LAN2 --------- router --------- radio terminal
/
LAN3_________/

The PPPoE connections require the specification of the "Service-Name" parameter by the client - Cisco ISRs do not support the specification of the "Service-Name" parameter and I cannot establish PPPoE connections from the LANs. So, I would like to use a Linux PPPoE client running on the AXP to establish the PPPoE sessions to my radio terminal. The traffic flow from LAN1, LAN2, LAN3, etc. would then have to be routed through the AXP PPPoE connections. This is a relatively low bandwidth system - total throughput is less than 1 Mbps.

Hope this helps and thanks for your time.

Bill


--
To respond to this post, please click the following link:
<http://developer.cisco.com/web/axp/forums/-/message_boards/message/2034421>
or simply reply to this email.

Bill,
 
I've discussed this question with our engineering team and we will need to set up our lab and do some research into this matter.  Meanwhile please contact our AXP product management team at ask-axp-pm@cisco.com and reference this thread.  They would like to discuss this request with you and to learn more of its implementation.
 
Thanks,
 
Brett

Bill,

My apologies for taking so long to get back to you.  We've done some research on your question from a PPP angle as it is required for PPPoE and this configuration can be supported on AXP.  The idea would be to use the service-module external eth1 port to send the Service-Name parameter to the radio terminal.  As a result AXP would act as an intermediary between the router and the radio terminal.  What is required is ip forwarding and PPP support configured on AXP along with your application to send the data.  I'm also pursuing the simpler approach of checking if there is a way for the router to send the 'Service-Name" parameter, but my research as yours appears to show that this approach is not supported.
 
Our team would like to better understand how your data will be routed from/to the service module and the radio terminal.  Are you using a particular routing protocol or just setting ip routes?
 
Thanks,
 
Brett

Bill,
 
I have even better news.  Versions of IOS 12.4.22(T) and above do support the PPPoE client sending a Service-Name string.  Here's snippet below which I added using c3825-adventerprisek9-mz.124-24.T3.bin
 
interface GigabitEthernet0/0.3
pppoe enable group global
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 2 service-name "string"
 
 
Brett

Brett,

Thanks - that sounds good. I'll give it a try. I'd like to avoid putting the ISM in the data path and this sounds like it'll do it for me.

Do you have any idea if this feature has made it into 15.0.1M2 or 15.1.1T?

Bill

________________________________
From: Cisco Developer Community Forums [mailto:cdicuser@developer.cisco.com]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 1:38 PM
To: cdicuser@developer.cisco.com
Subject: New Message from Brett Tiller in Application eXtension Platform(AXP) - Technical Questions: RE: New Message from Bill Carroll inApplication eXtension Platform (AXP) -

Brett Tiller has created a new message in the forum "Technical Questions":
--------------------------------------------------------------
Bill,

I have even better news. Versions of IOS 12.4.22(T) and above do support the PPPoE client sending a Service-Name string. Here's snippet below which I added using c3825-adventerprisek9-mz.124-24.T3.bin

interface GigabitEthernet0/0.3
pppoe enable group global
pppoe-client dial-pool-number 2 service-name "string"


Brett
--
To respond to this post, please click the following link:
<http://developer.cisco.com/web/axp/forums/-/message_boards/message/2115437>
or simply reply to this email.

Bill,
 
Just checked IOS release 150-1.M2 and the pppoe-client service-name feature is included.
 
Brett

Hey, everybody. I have a similar problem to Bill. Is there a whitepaper or something on how to set up the PPPoE client on the AXP?

Hi Glenn,

Sorry there is no white paper at this time. What PPPoE client do you intend to run on AXP? As you may know CentOS does provide a user space client in rpm file: rp-pppoe-3.5-32.1.i386 RPM. Please explain your intended usage. If you are new to AXP or haven't yet created a production system, instead of AXP you may want to consider our SRE-V product on which you can install your own OS and packaging/porting your application is not required as needed on AXP. More information at: www.cisco.com/go/ucse and http://developer.cisco.com/web/srev.

Thanks,

Brett

Hi Brett, thanks for your reply.

We have an application that we've developed on a linux-based platform that we are trying to port to the AXP. This is our first foray into AXP integration, so it's a little stumble-as-you-go. The application is similar to what Mr. Carroll was doing with respect to the fact that the application communicates directly to a radio terminal over pppoe. I did install the pppd rpm, but it would not let me create the device in the /dev filesystem. I do think I forgot to install rp-pppoe, but I'm not sure if I won't still have the same problem without kernel level privileges?

We had seriously considered doing this on the SRE, but our problem is that a significant portion of our customer base still runs on G1 hardware and likely won't be upgrading any time soon. The original AXP allows us to reach a greater market once we can overcome the learning curve.

I'll try installing the rp-pppoe rpm to see if that works, and then probably request the kernel access? Next thing to tackle will be iptables...

Thanks!
--glenn

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the information. We can certainly provide you with an authorization bundle with kernel level privileges if needed. The rpm I've mentioned runs in user space, according to what I've read, so it should run. If you have problems with it, please first check the host side messages.log file for errors: 'show log name messages.log interactive'. Please keep us apprised of your progress and ping us with your questions as needed.

Thanks,

Brett

No joy. The pppd still needs me to mknod the device in the /dev filesystem.

Jul 25 14:05:27 se-10-1-1-2 pppd: 2011 Jul 25 14:05:27 GMT +0000 pppd[7715]: pppd is unable to open the /dev/ppp device. You need to create the /dev/ppp device node by executing the following command as root: mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
Jul 25 14:06:08 se-10-1-1-2 pppd: 2011 Jul 25 14:06:08 GMT +0000 pppd[7821]: Linux kernel does not support PPPoE -- are you running 2.4.x?

I should request the kernel level privileges at this time?

--g

Glenn,

It appears that you will need higher level privileges. However, kernel level privileges allow you to insert, but not create kernel modules. Please let us know of the rpms you are using and your steps taken to set up the PPPOe client so that I can test this in my lab. You can also provide your business case for your PPOe requirement to url: ask-axp-pm@cisco.com for additional privileges.

Thanks,

Brett

MKNOD requires HIDDEN level permissions. With HIDDEN permissions TAC support for AXP is void. The maximum permissions we can grant with TAC support for AXP is Kernel level. I would suggest you looking at UCS Express platform (www.cisco.com/go/ucse) provided you have SM-SRE hardware and ISR G2 routers.





Thanks



Anurag Gurtu, CISSP

Can this be done with the capabilities file? Surely there must be some way to use PPPoE on the G1 platform.

We would surely like to use UCS Express, but require compatibility with ISR G1 routers. emoticon

Hidden permissions are part of Capabilities file. We can give you those permissions if you require but I would encourage you to only use them for proof of concept. Any solution using those privileges in production isn¿t qualified by IVT or support using TAC. Technically those permissions go outside Vserver model that¿s the virtualization technology we use.



Thanks



Anurag Gurtu, CISSP

Hi Glenn,

I'd like to try setting up your PPPOE client here to help get you beyond the issue you are seeing. Please let us know of the rpms you are using and your steps taken to set up the PPPOe client on AXP so that I can test this in my lab. I assume you're using release 1.6.1 or 1.6.2?

Thanks,

Brett