Hello!

I've got a case which I think I solved wrongly - it works but I'm not happy with that
So the problem is simple - I want to have one device instead of two and be able to watch IPTV using STB (MAG250) supplied by ISP. By default ISP offers following configuration:
Unfortunately I'm not happy with that since I'm wasting 5 ports switch just to connect STB & hAP. I also need to place one extra cable to another room just for STB. I modified ISPs configuration:
Since while I started I known nothing about IPTV I started digging. On one forum I found following configuration: So what I did I removed ether2 from bridge and configured ether3 as master for 4 & 5. Next I used configuration above and... well, nothing happened One thing which puzzled me is ether2 was marked red in winbox. I tried using torch and I didn't found anything interesting except BOOTP packets.
Next I tried changing ether1 (WAN) mac addr. to STB one - it did a trick, I obtained proper dhcp-server address - it was little different than in configuration above (let's assume it was 1.2.3.4 to protect ISP internal network configuration ). After changing dhcp relay to that address nothing happened - STB still can't boot complaining about software update (probably it cannot get BOOTP response). If I try to boot normally and than reconnect to MT switching channels gives only black screen. I suspect that Rendezvous Point IP may be wrong, but I have no idea how to obtain proper one.

Next I disabled dhcp-relay & PIM and started all over again - this time I tried IGMP proxy. Long story short - it didn't worked.
The last hope was to just bridge ether1 & 2 plus reconfigure NAT to use newly created bridge instead of ether1. It works without any problems, but I feel it's bad way to do it.


My questions:
1. Is PIM a proper way to solve my problem?
2. Is it possible to use IPTV port (ether2 in my case) to connect STB and other computers inside LAN? So to be clear I want STB (and only STB) to communicate with IPTV network and other computers connected to that port communicate with my bridge-local.
3. I read that some ISPs use VLANs to separate IPTV & Internet networks. I think since I use simple switch (some cheap Zyxel one) my ISP uses something different?

Some simplest solution I can think of

eth1 - isp WAN
eth2 - stb
eth3-4 - LAN

Remove eth1 and eth2 from default bridge, that what is wlan added.
Create another bridge add to it eth1 and eth2.
Set dhcp-client/ip addess to "another bridge"

That's what I did finally and it's working but I don't like this solution.
Currently ether1 is connected to ISP, ether2 to STB and there's bridge-WAN on them. Another bride called bridge-intranet is crated for wlan1 and ether3, while ether4 & 5 are switched with master port set to ether3.

Small, but important update
After rebooting the router NAT stopped working. I logged into console and tried pinging gateway or dans - timeout. I was little puzzled because before reboot everything worked flawlessly. When I disable ether2 entry in bridge everything starts working normally, but as soon as I reenadble it internet is gone again
I've tried disabling STP but it has no effect.

Currently to make things working I attached only ether1 & 2 to switch and bridged rest of the ports Something weird is happening here...

Need your help brother
Im also looking for best setting.
I have RB2011UiAS-RM and local home network with one of the ports I want to connect MAG 254 for IPTV.
What is proper way to configure RouterBoard for IPTV.

Thanks,
Norm

Try http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Routing/IGMP-Proxy
+
add firewall rule to allow IGMP traffic for upstream (in my example for ether1-wan):
PS: igmp not present by default. You should add it installing additional package "multicast" ( http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:System/Packages )

I would see the solution in the following way:

eth1 - WAN
eth2-4 - LAN (in a bridge or slave to eth2 - see below)

- accept IGMP on eth1 (NOT the PPPoE interface or some other WAN interface if there is one)
- activate IGMP proxy with upstream interface eth1 (again, NOT the PPPoE interface if there is one) and bridge or eth2 as downstream interface (see below)
- put your STB on the LAN
- since MT does not have IGMP snooping, set up bridge filtering so only the STB receives the IPTV multicast (else all your LAN will be flooded by the IPTV traffic, but only a single TV channel stream because of the proxy). Now if this doesn't bother you, since you will get only a single TV stream via the proxy (some 10 Mbps for a HDTV stream, about 4Mbps for SD), you could skip the bridge and slave all ports to eth2 to take advantage of the hardware switch chip.

This of course assumes that your STB can be placed in the LAN and get a local IP.

I would see the solution in the following way:

eth1 - WAN
eth2-4 - LAN (in a bridge or slave to eth2 - see below)

- accept IGMP on eth1 (NOT the PPPoE interface or some other WAN interface if there is one)
- activate IGMP proxy with upstream interface eth1 (again, NOT the PPPoE interface if there is one) and bridge or eth2 as downstream interface (see below)
- put your STB on the LAN
- since MT does not have IGMP snooping, set up bridge filtering so only the STB receives the IPTV multicast (else all your LAN will be flooded by the IPTV traffic, but only a single TV channel stream because of the proxy). Now if this doesn't bother you, since you will get only a single TV stream via the proxy (some 10 Mbps for a HDTV stream, about 4Mbps for SD), you could skip the bridge and slave all ports to eth2 to take advantage of the hardware switch chip.

This of course assumes that your STB can be placed in the LAN and get a local IP.

ok thanks ,ill try that

[quote="docmarius"]I would see the solution in the following way:

eth1 - WAN
eth2-4 - LAN (in a bridge or slave to eth2 - see below)

- accept IGMP on eth1 (NOT the PPPoE interface or some other WAN interface if there is one)
- activate IGMP proxy with upstream interface eth1 (again, NOT the PPPoE interface if there is one) and bridge or eth2 as downstream interface (see below)
- put your STB on the LAN
- since MT does not have IGMP snooping, set up bridge filtering so only the STB receives the IPTV multicast (else all your LAN will be flooded by the IPTV traffic, but only a single TV channel stream because of the proxy). Now if this doesn't bother you, since you will get only a single TV stream via the proxy (some 10 Mbps for a HDTV stream, about 4Mbps for SD), you could skip the bridge and slave all ports to eth2 to take advantage of the hardware switch chip.

This of course assumes that your STB can be placed in the LAN and get a local IP.[/q]

Ok got confused and not sure if that's all I need - iptv still glitching.

Here is what ive got




Do I need to add anything else>? thanks

From your screen capture, I see one thing missing:
Add the LAN bridge as an interface to your IGMP proxy
It may be necessary (I am not sure) to also accept multicast UPD 224.0.0.0/4 from WAN (start with 224.0.0.0/4, you can restrict it later to whatever you need) using a firewall rule.

Could you explain what you mean by glitching?

From your screen capture, I see one thing missing:
Add the LAN bridge as an interface to your IGMP proxy
It may be necessary (I am not sure) to also accept multicast UPD 224.0.0.0/4 from WAN (start with 224.0.0.0/4, you can restrict it later to whatever you need) using a firewall rule.

Could you explain what you mean by glitching?

Too much buffering. sometimes watching HD channel stops and than works again, or sound keep going but picture freezes.
I have 150 Mbps connection - so looks like inet is not an issue.
I was thinking thats IPTV server issue, but my buddy lives 35 min away from me with the same provider and the same 150 Mbps internet and everything works fine.

Is this configuration looks ok ? Does IGMP Proxy MFC section also need some addons?
It also looks weird because usually when you have things working and propelly setup you will see some RX or TX packages going on - but in my setup looks 0.

Thanks for help bro & hompefully together we can figure that out, Routerboard is SUPER complicated and I', still learning. If you please suggest something - can you also put some example for scrip or something like that thanks

Ok. We will solve this step by step.
First get your lat 2 accept firewall rules before rule number 7 (drop all).
They are evaluated in order...
On second, since your IPTV is still working behind the router (which it shouldn't), are you sure your getting IPTV by multicast?

Ok. We will solve this step by step.
First get your lat 2 accept firewall rules before rule number 7 (drop all).
They are evaluated in order...
On second, since your IPTV is still working behind the router (which it shouldn't), are you sure your getting IPTV by multicast?

Not sure - how can I see if its coming by multicast?
I try to follow this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdG2_vDUmss

and when the guy turns his iptv on his traffic RX & TX works, Mine at ZERO
Is my Interface list configuret properly?
I'm confused about firewall rules - here is screenshot

some people was writing they router get heavy use with multicast and cpu usage is quiet high. mine is 5-8% is it ok ?

Please torch your WAN interface and see if there is multicast traffic on it.
Something like from some IP to 239.x.y.x or some other IPs in the 224.0.0.0/4 range.
This will tell us how to tackle that IPTV traffic.
Assuming that's a dumb switch from your provider, you may need to have your STB on the WAN and running to get that traffic...
But I have seen newer 5 port switches that do IGMP snooping, e.g. the $25 TP-Link TL-SG105.
You may want also to enable MAC protocol, Port, Protocol and VLAN id on the torch options (don't forget to stop and start it after checking them) to see if there are any VLANs used for IPTV.

If it's multicast on a vlan it should look something like this:

Yes, unfortunatelly I dont see any 239 or 224.... all I see is my external Public IP address and thats it - I'm assuming Im not getting multicast?
What exactly do you mean by that: "you may need to have your STB on the WAN and running to get that traffic"
STB as I know is not working as router and will not get IP address - am I wrong? And this would probably would not be case for me because IU need to connect couple STB boxes in feature.
I'll try to change my cable model and will try older to see if that will give me something diofferent.
Is multicast is depend from IPTV provider, my internet provider or hardwares?

Thanks
Norm

I am facing something similar...

Working on an install where they have Century Link as the ISP and TV provider.

There is one cat-5 coming from the ONT to the Century Link router. The cable boxes are connected to the router via cat-5.

I did manage to put the cable boxes into a switch... found there to be no VLAN tags, despite what I was told.

After reading a few articles... it seems that the feed from the ONT will provide a Public DHCP address to a client tagging 201.

Added a VLAN of 201 to an interface... sure enough... I get the Public IP. Internet works... but TV stops after about 7 seconds.
Now where I am stuck is the TV part.
I found this article..
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r302708 ... in-Seattle

I just can't seam to figure it out.

I am not real familiar with IGMP settings.

Anyone have any insight?

I'll try to explain a little...

Your ISP has somewhere in the upstream a switch which does IGMP snooping. Now how does this work?

Let's say the ISP provides to IPTV streams, 239.0.0.1:1234 and 239.0.0.2:1234 on VLAN 100
These streams will be streamed all the time into that switch, but because of IGMP snooping, no client will get then. Yet.
In order to receive a specific stream, let's say 239.0.0.1, the STB, working on VLAN100, will send out a IGMP group join message for 239.0.0.1 on VLAN100.
The switch will get that message, and will start outputing the stream on the interface where the join message was heard.
Now if you switch channels, the STB will send out a IGMP group leave message for 239.0.0.1 on VLAN 00 and a group join message for 239.0.0.2 on VLAN100.
Because of this, the switch will stop sending stream 239.0.0.1 to that specific ethernet port, and start forwarding 239.0.0.2 to it.
While showing a specific channel, the STB will repeat these group join messages, to keep the stream up. There is a timeout for these join messages, so after a while, if not receiving IGMP, the stream will be cut off.

So, for you to be able to see the streams on your ISP interface, someone has to send out a group join message, so the stream keeps flowing.
The easiest way to achieve this is to have a dumb switch on the ISP interface (and I mean really dumb, without IGMP snooping - the cheaper and older, the better), with the STB and the interface to be torched/sniffed connected to it.
Start watching a channel, and the multicast stream should show up.
This will allow you to find out the exactly what the setup looks like.

...but TV stops after about 7 seconds.

In the routed IPTV setups I have done, each and every time this was a multicast problem either caused by too strict firewall rules or inappropiate setup of IGMP snooping. Using torch, connection table and wireshark will supply you with all the information you need.

Is multicast is depend from IPTV provider, my internet provider or hardwares?

Yes. IPTV can be bridged or can be routed.
If bridged, you should configure a VLAN bridge accordingly and you don't need to fuzz around with IGMP proxy.
If routed, the IPTV traffic may still be delivered to your home on a different VLAN (see gotsprings' post) but you'll also need IGMP proxy as well as potentially a whole host of other options, varying from specific DHCP client options, alternative subnets for the IGMP proxy and NAT rules.
If you do not have these provided and you're a little out of your comfort zone with concepts like multicast, I'd give you little chance to figure it out. Perhaps if you'd mention your ISP someone could dig up these settings if available on the net somewhere.

Anyone have any insight?

From the link you provided:

• set IGMP Proxy upstream interface to the VLAN 201 interface with 67.12.0.0/15, 151.118.0.0/15 as alternative subnets
• set IGMP proxy downstream interface to whatever your STB is attached to
• open up firewall for IGMP traffic on the INPUT chain accept UDP traffic from 67.12.0.0/15, 151.118.0.0/15 and 224.0.0.0/4 on the FORWARD chain (personally I'd say these are a little bit too liberal to be applied to your whole LAN so I would try and further tighten these rules based on torch results AFTER you get this working e.g. use VLAN 201 input interface and/or completely isolate the STBs on a seperate VLAN in your LAN - this last method can also be used as a poor mans IGMP snooping and prevent traffic being multicasted on every port in the LAN L2 segment).

EDIT: formatting

magchiel and docmarius

Thanks.

Will give it a shot.

magchiel and docmarius

Worked through it with your help.

THANK YOU!

Maybe you can share the guide of your setup.

Hello,

I need assistance, am a small ISP offering IPTV services using encoders, CRS326-24G-2S+RM, Server and STB's. I have the IPTV working but keep freezing. I noted the TX traffic to STB to be 68Mbps which doesn't seem normal and thinking it might be the problem.
Kindly I need assistance to get appropriate traffic 6/8Mbps to flow to the STB's.

Thanks.