HughesNet Networking FAQ

[JacksonTech]

Since this forum doesn't have a sticky feature, I put some of the most common questions and answers about the HT1000 modem on a single webpage:

http://jacksontech.net/index.php/hugh...

It's a work in progress, so expect it to be updated frequently. Let me know if you have any other topics you'd like to see there.

Does anyone here have a HT1100 modem? Does it act the same as the HT1000 modem in terms of networking?

[Sandy MT]

JacksonTech - I'm a heavy VPN user. What kind of data are you looking for and how might I capture it for you? I'd be happy to help!!

[JacksonTech]

I was looking for upload/download speed and latency. I don't know what operating system or VPN software you're using, but what I was planning to do:

1) Ping through the VPN tunnel (the software I use, OpenVPN, shows up as a network interface like a normal network card),

2) Download a medium-size (less than 15MB) once or twice file to see what the download rate is, and

3) Figure out some way to test interactivity--maybe an SSH connection over the VPN to see if it's any worse than SSH over satellite (which is pretty hilariously bad already).

Actually I can test another type of "VPN" right now: SSH allows a user to set up an encrypted tunnel and use it as a SOCKS proxy. So I'll try downloading a few files through the SSH tunnel with Firefox. 🙂

[C0RR0SIVE]

Pretty sure it's around 128MB, being able to telnet into it though, never gonna happen.

[Suz1]

Hi JacksonTech, thanks so much for the great topic! 🙂
Suz

[SaraforHughes]

and yes Gwalk - we're considering how we can best feature this information Jackson so eloquently put together. Thank you Jackson.

[ADVOCATE]

Sara

Don't forget to pay him copy right fees. 🙂

[JacksonTech]

The easiest way would be just to link to the site. I'd rather not have it mirrored because I keep updating it. If the URL ever changes I'll throw in a redirect, but I doubt it will change. The idea of a permalink is that it's...well...permanent.

Next up: IPv6. I almost have a fully working IPv6 setup at home. Turns out HughesNet actually gives us routed prefixes (multiple subnets too) via prefix delegation!

[ADVOCATE]

They can learn from you.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Told ya they was routable 😉 Though I have learned that certain routers are very poor about IPv6 implementation, especially PFSense and IPCop distros...

[JacksonTech]

New post on HughesNet's native IPv6 infrastructure. Very lengthy how-to on setting up a CentOS/RHEL router to service IPv6 clients. The post is rough around the edges but I'll be updating it over the next few days.

All this work for a little dancing turtle...

http://jacksontech.net/index.php/2013...

[BirdDog]

Oh Jackson, I still think of you as HF. Those were the days, 🙂

Will this help with VPN? Curious because I tried to get my wife's work laptop encrypted VPN to minimally perform a long time ago on my then HN7000s system. Of course, no go.

I would like to try again with Gen4.

[JacksonTech]

Hmm, maybe I should change my avatar back to Mr. Finch...!

If your wife's workplace is IPv6 enabled, it *should* work. You'd probably need to register with a dynamic DNS service (foo, that's what I forgot to mention) for when the prefix changes, and run a little daemon like ddclient to update your IPv6 address on occasion.

Let me do some...testing...

[JacksonTech]

I just did a few file transfers via SCP from my desktop to a VPS I have. What a weird feeling--directly accessing a computer with no port forwarding.

IPv6 is supposed to get rid of the end-to-end breakage nonsense of NAT, so these are PUBLIC addresses (although dynamic). NAT is such a hack...

Even with scp, I saturated my uplink at 1MBit/s. Not sure what I hit when transferring a file back to the desktop because it transferred too fast.

I think it's safe to say that performance on a VPN would be reasonable, if not the full 10MBit/s download. (Remember, pulling a file *from* your home computer is using your lower-speed uplink, not your downlink.)

Keep in mind that you're gonna have to reconsider how you think of firewalling, security, etc. There are no private addresses on IPv6. (Well, there are, but, there aren't.) Each of your machines should have an IPv6 firewall on them and your border router should have one too.

[BirdDog]

Thanks, some of what you said is above my head but going to try her VPN laptop here again. It is super encrypted and may not work but I will consult with you to attempt to get it working.

I do think it will eat bandwidth though because the encryption is constantly polling.

I sure wish they had PM working here.

[JacksonTech]

I don't mind emails or Google+ conversations (email is on the site). I'm also at the dslreport forums.

What VPN software are you hoping to have working? It depends a lot on how it's implemented. Unfortunately I'm only familiar with OpenVPN.

[BirdDog]

A government VPN. All I will say for now. 🙂

Will get with you once I try to get it going. Maybe awhile before she even snags one of their laptops again. Needless to say, hard to get.

[C0RR0SIVE]

I am half tempted to beg you to figure out what I can NOT get figured out... IPv6 with PFSense 2.1RC0 Tue Jul 23 build still fails with IPv6 on my LAN, and WAN it feels like, especially when I have SQUID running locally.

When enabled it wants to assign FE: addressing which is a non-routable address from what I can find. The LAN is set to track WAN, but refuses to assign the proper addresses. Changing it at all on my box, will result in the WAN option disappearing for good, till the OS is re-installed.

Always fail the IPv6 tests for some reason.

[notechsupport2]

Charles, Yeah PFSense is pretty finicky. I have successfully used RC0 with servers at co-los over fiber but still have issues with certain web services. I suspect use over Hughes will require quite a fair bit of debugging, is edge case, and will probably not work for a while.

BTW, FEC-FEF are site-local and will forward where as FE8-FEB are link-local and will not.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Pretty sure it was wanting to assign FE80 or similar on the LAN side, really wish the developers would put more time into fixing IPv6 related issues instead of making things like the RRD graphs pretty...

[JacksonTech]

I just got an older 2.1RC0 to assign a 2001: address on both the WAN and the LAN, but ran into another problem: the DHCPv6/RA server for pfSense really doesn't want to run without a static IPv6 address, and the DHCPv6 relay configuration page seems to be missing an option or two. I'll have to tinker with it later...

As for the WAN disappearing, is it an fxp card? IIRC there's a regression in the upstream FreeBSP fxp driver and it likes to make the card go into an infinite loop of bringing the link up, then dropping it, then bringing it up, then dropping it...

[C0RR0SIVE]

Yep, both are FXP, this was the error I was talking about with mine a few months ago, though the latest versions seem to work a bit better about that loop, it's much less common now.