Sky Fibre Broadband (FTTP) with Ubiquity USG (i.e. 3rd party router)

[BentleyBoy183]

I've had Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) for a few years now, and have previously been with other broadband suppliers (e.g. IDNet and BT) and have always used Ubiquity equipment rather than the ISP supplied hardware.  I was pleased to be told by the customer services rep. when I signed up for Sky Ultrafast Broadband (and also Sky TV which I'm very excited about 😀 ) that Sky support 3rd party routers and don't mandate you use the Sky supplied router.

My switch over from BT is tomorrow, and I'm looking to understand how to configure my equpment with Sky Fibre broadband.

My setup involves

- The BT Openreach FTP box connected via an ethernet cable to

- A Ubiquity UniFi Security Gateway (UniFi USG)  which connects to my switch an Ubiquity devices (e.g. WiFi Access Points) 

For the other FTTP providers the setup involved setting a PPoE username and password relating to the provider in the router interface.  For example, for BT this was a username bthomehub 'At' btbroadband.com and password ** as shown in the image below.

I'm looking to find a guide to setup the Ubiquiti inUSG settings for Sky broadband, but have not found anything on the Sky.com site so hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

BentleyBoy

[DanD90]

Sky won't have guides to setup a third party router unfortunately. However, a quick search resulted in this Ubiquiti community post: https://community.ui.com/questions/DHCP-Option-61-on-USG/ff550e33-1796-4ac7-bdf4-ea7c3e889f79

[Chrisee]

@BentleyBoy183 as pointed out Sky do not provide support for third party routers but that doesn't mean they dont work although Sky does not use PPOE. Hopefully the link you have been given will work otherwise post again. 

You mention Sky TV which system are you getting Sky Q or Sky Glass? Glass is simple to set up using by entering the wifi password if you choose the non Sky setup or wps if you choose sky set up. Q is more complicated but hopefully as that involves an engineer they will do that for you but despite you having Sky Ultrafast you use the non-Sky set up if you are using a third party router as the Sky set up only works with the Sky hub.

[jamesn123]

@BentleyBoy183 

You need to change it to DHCP for the WAN then fill in the DHCP Option 61 client identifier box.

[BentleyBoy183]

Thank you @DanD90  @Chrisee and @jamesn123  for your responses.

@Chrisee  - I have ordered Sky Q rather than Sky Glass

From the links @DanD90 has posted and other reasearch, I have realised that my current set up alone (i.e. a Ubiquiti USG connected to BT Openreach ONT) will not support what I want to achieve, as from what I understand an additional device is needed (e.g. Draytek Vigor 130) to provide a connection to the ONT with Sky (it does not support the PPoE username/password method).

As well as a ~£200 investment for the Draytek Vigor 130 (or similar) I think this set-up has technical complexity of setting things up looks beyond my knowhow and I've not found a step-by-step guide.

As well as the USG, I have a

- Unifi 16 port PoE Switch - for various hard wired devices.

- 3 x UniFi PoE Wireless Access Points (2 x UAP-AC-Pro and a UAP-AC-M) connected to the switch to provide WiFi signal around the house and garden.

As such I think my options are

1. Cancel Sky Fibre in the 14-day cool off period and switch to a provider that supports current setup (e.g. BT Broadband) and keep Sky Q for TV (which I understand can work with BT Fibre)
2. Simply use Sky equipment end-to-end - which means not using all my Ubiquiti equipment and probably not getting WiFi coverage around the house/garden I need.
3. Use the Sky Router and connect the UniFi switch and WAPs to this directly (losing the USG and its functionality).

As such I'm going to investigate option 3.  I believe the WAPs can operate without a USG and hopefully I can set up as follows.

BT ONT <--> Sky Broadband Hub (SR203) <--> UniFi Switch 16 POE

- Keep existing UniFi WAPs connected to Swich and hopefully configure directly

- Connect Sky Q box to the UniFi Switch via ethernet of WiFi

If the UniFi WAPs work, I'm hoping I might be able to disable Wi-Fi on the SR203 or failing that set the same WiFi name and password as the existing WAPs.

My final comment is I now realise I should of researched this up front before ordering Sky Broadband, rather than assume it would work in the same way as IDNet and BT Broadband. 😀  No doubt using a separate broadband supplier from Sky would mean my overall cost for broadband and TV was higher,

I'll report back how I get on with 3).  Any further advice/guidance appreciated.

[jamesn123]

@BentleyBoy183 

The Draytek modem is only a requirement for those on FTTC/ADSL not FTTP. The Openreach ONT does the job that a Draytek modem would usually do. The setup of ONT > USG should work.

[BentleyBoy183]

Thanks again guys.  You are helping me with my planning  for Sky Fibre enablement and that is appreciated.

I have established that I can change the configuration of my USG to change the authentication from PPoE to DHCP for the "WAN" connection to the ONT.

This is relatively simple I think as there are options in the USG GUI (I have a USG-3P running firmware version 4.4.56).  Settings shown are those for BT Fibre, and I have marked up what I plan to change.

 

Not sure if I should use Sky's DNS servers rather than Googles?  Probably prudent?

The more tricky but for my USG is setting the DHCP Option 61.  I understand this needs to be set to something as shown in the example from a UDM-Pro which does allow this to be configured in the GUI as shown

 

As my USG does not have an option to configure in the GUI, I will have to work out the command to set via the CLI, and I can SSH to the USG to do that (now to work out the specific commands needed as my network is called 'Default (WAN1) and he interface 'wan - WAN').

The other questions I am investigating is "Does the DHCP Client Option String" have to be something specific"?  Or  Will a random striong and password work (e.g. the one shown) or do I have to use the username and password for my Sky Q box.  Some people seem to suggest that you have to use a specific username and password to get the "full" download speed you paid for.

I'll carry on my research and post updates.  Hopefully I'm learning something. 😀

[jamesn123]

Hi @BentleyBoy183 

Yes that is correct, the WAN setting on your USG goes to DHCP. The DNS servers dont matter you can use any you like.

As for the Client Identifier (DHCP Option 61 box) you need to fill it out the same as the screenshot you posted from a UDM pro. There is no unique credentials, just generic ones that Sky systems need to see in order to connect to abcdefg@skydsl|abc123 will work fine

[BentleyBoy183]

Thanks again @jamesn123 

I have confirmed that for my USG there is no GUI option for adding a DHCP scope option, so I think the required solution is to do this via the command line (CLI) of the USG (which I think is temporary) or via the cloud controller.

The excellent article you shared gives insight:

DHCP Option 61 on USG | Ubiquiti Community

My Unifi Cloud Controller technical support also gave me that same link and they have indicated they don't themselves support making a config file, they can upload a supplied config file.

A linked GITHUB page provides a code sample that I think is needed (see below [1]

USG + Sky · GitHub

The code to set the required DHCP option on the primary (first) WAN interface is shown in a config.gateway.json file [1]

What I'm not clear on is how I get this code onto my cloud controller.

If I SSH onto the USG I used the following command

mca-ctrl -t dump-cfg

This dumped out a 447 line .JSON file covering lots of configuration for the USG.  There is an interfaces section in that dump which shows my current configuration, but I'm not sure how I can get the additional dhcp-options code into the right place in the code.

When Sky confirm they have enabled my service, once I have made the changes I can in the GUI, I would then email technical support for my cloud controller and ask them to add in that code segment, but I think they might want to entire config.gateway.json file.

Also, I don't see in the examples any DHCP scopes being set up in the example configs, just the option.  Is that configuration not needed.

I hope I am going down the right path, but any guidances/answers to my questions appreciated.

[1] JSON code for config.gateway.json

{

  "interfaces": {

    "ethernet": {

      "eth0": {

        "address": ["dhcp"],

        "dhcp-options": {

          "client-option": [

            "retry 60;",

            "send dhcp-client-identifier &quot;bacons&quot;;"

          ],

          "default-route": "update",

          "default-route-distance": "1",

          "name-server": "no-update"

        }

      }

    }

  }

}

[jamesn123]

@BentleyBoy183 

Might be worth asking the support agent what exactly you need to provide them with. The code snippet from GitHub with the Sky config details may be enough or you could provide them with the sky dsl connection string to input into the 'client-option' parameter. 

Unfortunately thats as far as my knowledge goes in terms of ubiquiti. You may find it beneficial to open up a new community post on the Ubiquiti side and quote that thread you've been using.

[BentleyBoy183]

Thank you @jamesn123 

I have taken your advice and

1) asked the support agent what they need, and they confirmed it is the full config.gateway.json file.

2) Opened up a new community post on the Ubiquiti forum ( https://community.ui.com/questions/DHCP-Option-61-on-the-USG-2022-Update/ba34c016-dc38-472e-b55e-0d8... )

At some point today I should get opportunity to try all of this.  BT Fibrew still working and Sky say they activate any time up to midnight tonight 😀

[Doofusburger]

@BentleyBoy183  I'm in the same situation as you but getting enabled on Thursday.

Please can you keep this thread updated?

Thanks

[BentleyBoy183]

@Doofusburger I will keep the thread informed with how I get on.  I got my dates mixed up.

- Today I have had Sky Q installed which went smoothly and now all up and running.

- Tomorrow (Thursday 21st July) is my Sky Fibre broadband enablement day.

I'm going to try today to add the DHCP Scope Option 61 to my LAN DHCP configration on my USG  using the SSH commands as I understand this will be "harmless" as the option should be ignored (and to see the effect on the configuration).

If that works I'll then be ready to try the same on the WAN configuration on the USG tomorrow post Sky Fibre enablement.

I've had no response to my thread on the UI.COM forums ☹️

https://community.ui.com/questions/DHCP-Option-61-on-the-USG-2022-Update/ba34c016-dc38-472e-b55e-0d8... 

[BentleyBoy183]

An update on some testing and some questions for those following 😁

1) I obtained the IP address of my USG from the UniFi Cloud web portal.

2) From a Windows 11 PC on the LAN I SSH to the USG via the command ssh -l <username for USG> 192.168.x.1 where 192.198.x.1 is the IP address of my USG on my local network

3) Enter the password for the USG

4) You are then in the EdgeOS CLI for ths USG [1]

5) From there issue the command configure

6) then you can enter the following commands

set interfaces ethernet eth0 dhcp-options client-option "send dhcp-client-identifier &quot;usernameATskydsl|mypass&quot;;" (replace AT with ampersand character)

7) then issue the following command

set interfaces ethernet eth0 dhcp-options client-option

😎 Both commans did not give a response.

9) I then ran mca-ctrl -t dump-cfg and compared the output to an output I had obtained before running any commands on the USG CLI.

In the output file the bold section was inserted in the dhcp-section

"service": {
"dhcp-server": {
"disabled": "false",
"global-parameters": [
"option Option61 code 224 = string;",
"class &quot;denied&quot; { match substring (hardware, 1, 6); deny booting; } subclass &quot;denied&quot; b4:fb:e4:81:b5:7c; subclass &quot;denied&quot; b4:fb:e4:81:b5:7d; subclass &quot;denied&quot; b4:fb:e4:81:b5:7e;"
],

10) As the USG intro text states "

********************** WARNING! **********************
* Configuration changes made here are not persistent. *
* They will be overwritten by the controller on next *
* provision. Configuration must be done in controller. *
********************************************************

However, I think one can restart the USG and it may authenticate with the ONT

Next step is to work out what to add to the config.gateway.json file to supply to my UniFi Cloud support team, but I think if the connection work it at least proves the configuration required on the USG.

The JSON file extract looks nothing like the GitHub library,

USG + Sky · GitHub

-> Can anyone reading comment if my approach makes sense.  Sky Fibre enablement day is tomorrow!

-> Can anyone reading comment on whether the changes added look different to the GITHUB extract

[1] 

___ ___ .__________.__
| | |____ |__\_ ____/__|
| | / \| || __) | | (c) 2010-2021
| | | | \ || \ | | Ubiquiti, Inc.
|______|___| /__||__/ |__|
|_/ https://www.ui.com

Welcome to EdgeOS on UniFi Security Gateway!

********************** WARNING! **********************
* Configuration changes made here are not persistent. *
* They will be overwritten by the controller on next *
* provision. Configuration must be done in controller. *
********************************************************

[2] https://gist.github.com/ryck/d3157331368c3555da06ee0eee1f10dd 

{   "interfaces": {   "ethernet": {   "eth0": {   "address": ["dhcp"],   "dhcp-options": {   "client-option": [   "retry 60;",   "send dhcp-client-identifier &quot;bacons&quot;;"   ],   "default-route": "update",   "default-route-distance": "1",   "name-server": "no-update"   }   }   }   }   }

[Doofusburger]

@BentleyBoy183  I've already edited the config.gateway.json file on my cloud key to allow MDNS between different VLANs.

I'll have a look at the dump of mine to see if I can help though I can't apply the DHCP option yet otherwise I'll lose my current broadband and the wife will kill me.