Plugging a computer directly to that router (with a Cat6) cable provides a 930 Mbps down, 830 up speed.
That internal network is a 192.168.1.1/24
Obviously, I don’t like plugging all my devices to the Zhone router… as god knows what security measures it has.
So I bought a Miktorik CRS125.
The CRS125 is plugged via Cat6 to the Zhone router, and then the computer is plugged to the CRS125.
Yet the download speeds are hovering in the 4-500 Mbps down, 5-600 up.
Maybe double-NAT’ing is going on.
So I set the CRS125 in a DMZ (from the Zhone administration web-gui).
Yet the speeds are still slow (4-500 down, 5-600 up).
Any suggestions you can make?
The Zhone doesn’t have (or I can’t see) a “Bridge Mode”…
The next test I will do is to “scratch” the CRS125 config, and start from zero (instead of the auto-config on first boot).
What do you guys think?
Any suggestions you can make?
Thank you very much for your time and help!
Let me know what other information would be useful.
This box will need tweaking for that kind of speed.
I.e. make sure that fast path / fast track are enabled, optimize rules, …
It would have been better to get a CCR. The CRS combines a fast switch with a “normal speed” router and
gigabit internet is not “normal speed”.
I recently bought a CCR-1009-8G-1S-1S+ which I think is a very nice box that should well be able to handle
this speed, however of course it has only 8 ports of which 4 are switchports. I use it with a 48-port switch
so number of ports is not a concern for me.
There are also even lower priced CCR-1009 models. They should be roughly the same in routing speed.
The CRS should be able to get a little faster but not full gigabit. However, it is just a cosmetic issue, you will
probably not be able to notice the difference outside of speedtesting.
If you use the CRS as a switch (it’s intended purpose), you should be able to get the same speeds as when your computer is plugged directly into the router. The CRS has a weak CPU and cannot easily handle the kind of speeds you’re looking for. Set up the CRS with ports 2-24 as slave to port 1. This will effectively make the CRS a managed switch, and you can use the actual router for all routing. The CRS is a wire-speed switch, so you shouldn’t have any loss of performance using this kind of a setup.
Guys, got a n00b question (yet another one!).
I was asking the people over at #miktorik (at freenode).
One of the suggestions was to add a Ubiquity Edgerouter Lite (ERL) between the Zhone fiber router and the Mikrotik CRS125.
Question: Why would this “ease up” the load on the CRS125?
Please excuse my n00b-ness…
A router sits between networks.
A switch is “internal” to a network.
So right now I have the CRS125 acting as a router (internal 192.168.21.1/24 and the external 221.som.eth.ing).
It is also acting as a switch for my internal devices.
My question:
Why would a UBNT ERL ease up the load on the CRS125?
Is it because the CRS125 is re-configured no-NAT?
I’m lost on this.
Do you really need the full gigabit speed? Or is this only apparent during testing?
You could always put the system that “requires” gigabit directly on the outside router (and configure good firewalling
on it) and put the remaining devices including those that you cannot really manage behind the MikroTik.
They will still be able to use the 500-800 Mbit/s that the CRS could do.
Also focus on getting everything on IPv6 as much as possible (of course with firewalling configured in the MikroTik).
This avoids the need for NAT. I hope your ISP gives you native IPv6 with a /60 or more and the possibility to route
some /64 prefixes to your own internal equipment.
The CRS can only achieve 500+ using fastpath…and not every connection can use it! This is why you should use a ROUTER for ROUTING, and a SWITCH for SWITCHING.
The Zhone is already doing NAT (most likely), so your internal IPV4 addresses are hidden from the outside world. Unless you’ve got a shady ISP, they’re not snooping around in your router to check out your internal network. Adding another layer of NAT behind that really doesn’t add any security, and it creates even more problems, especially with services that don’t tolerate NAT very well. If you absolutely want to use your own router, get rid of the Zhone and use a CCR to accept your incoming fiber connection - the CCR1009 will more than do the trick. Or set the Zhone into bridge mode so that your own router takes on the external IP address.
If you check the diagram of the CRS, all ports are connzcted to the cpu through only one 1 gb/s link. I use the sfp port with one copper gigabit and i m able to route all my bandwith. Almost 800Mb/s
Hello everyone,
I orderd a Ubiquiti ERLite 3.
It’s good because I get more experience with different types of equipment.
And I definitely don’t need 1 Gbps all the time, yet I hate to “leave that on the table”.
Now I will have a new piece of equipment to install and work with!
It is always a good idea when you buy equipment with such cutting-edge requirements to look at the specs.
On the CRS125 page, at the bottom, there are quite clear specs for that device that agree with what you see.
For the Edgerouter I don’t see such a table in the brochure, only the “1M packets/s” claim (@64 bytes/packet).
You now need to hope that it sustains that claim at larger packet sizes. 1Gbps @ 1500 bytes/packet is over
650k packets/s so you will probably still be stretching it…
(remember that unqualified speed claims in brochures usually assume a configuration unusable in practice,
e.g. no firewall rules. the table in the MikroTik brochure at least provides some different datapoints)
Thank you for the feedback!
Obviously I want it to work, yet what you just posted has been super insightful.
Five days ago, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that routers can hit a performance limit.
I just didn’t even realize it.
Also, although I slightly knew about networking, I didn’t truly visualize how a packet would go from a computer, to the CRS125 (switch), then off to the internet.
It was an eye-opener to learn that the CRS125 is doing the switching, AND the routing.
I now understand the ERLite 3 could alleviate the load on the CRS125.
(That’s a big maybe on the ERLite 3’s performance!!)
I am looking forward to learn how to tell the CRS125: Hey you, stop doing routing, just stick to switching.
Again, this entire excercise has been awesome.
One thing I can say:
I have received help on this forum, and on the irc #mikrotik and #ubnt channels.
Yet Mikrotik folks are waaay nicer than the Ubiquiti irc folk.
Obviously that’s a generalization, yet I just read non-nice things about Mikrotik from the Ubiquiti channel (the people that did respond).
I guess Cisco people at some point felt the same way towards other brands.
Thank you all, and I will keep this updated on how it progresses!
I believe you will come back to mikrotik even for routing when you realise what options you get from ubnt in the comparison. I have never read anything too much bad from a mikrotiker towards ubnt. It is just not necessary to denigrate. Experience talks for itself. You will get experience too.
The ERL should definitely do a better job than the CRS for routing, but for the price, you probably could’ve gotten a base RB2011 and the interface for configuration would be much more familiar with the CRS - and the RB2011 would easily have met your needs for gigabit routing. Since the ERL doesn’t have an SFP port, you’re going to need to use the Zhone as a media converter/bridge…don’t double NAT. Depending on whether your ISP allows you any administrative access to the Zhone, you may need to ask them to put it into bridge mode so that your ERL takes on your assigned public IP.
The RB2011 will not provide more routing power than the CRS125.
if 10x gigabit ports were more that enough, I would just have got the RB3011 and get rid of the CRS125. Otherwise, an RB850Gx2. Also this if 5x gigabit ports total were more than enough.
