Broadband Services

XDSL LNS Session Steering

Customers connected to us via Zen wholesale with realm z.dsl.faelix.net can steer which region or LNS their session is connected to by authenticating as follows:

Fx00000000@z.dsl.faelix.net — round-robin across our entire pool of LNSs
- Fx00000000+man@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in Manchester
  - Fx00000000+wil@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in Equinix MA1
  - Fx00000000+rey@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in Equinix MA2
- Fx00000000+lon@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in London
  - Fx00000000+thn@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in Telehouse North
  - Fx00000000+ixn@z.dsl.faelix.net — LNSs in Interxion LON2

Streaming Telemetry

Customers with connections via the following realms are able to access real-time telemetry about their connection:

z.dsl.faelix.net
i.dsl.faelix.net
cgn.z.dsl.faelix.net
l2tp.faelix.net

This data is an enriched set of accounting data proxied through from our RADIUS servers to our MQTT broker.

MQTT Broker

Server: mqtt.faelix.net
Port: 1883 (TLS)
8883 (TLS)
8443 (websocket)
Username: user@realm (as for your broadband)
Password: (as for your broadband)

RADIUS-MQTT Topics

Our cluster of anycast RADIUS servers send through RADIUS accounting messages to our central MQTT broker service.

radius/user@realm/Start: Accounting Start (connection established)
radius/user@realm/Stop: Accounting Stop (connection terminated)
radius/user@realm/Interim-Update: Periodic reports of line usage

For customers on our Zen-based broadband connections we also proxy through the RADIUS messages from the incoming L2TP tunnel establishment.

direct/realm/user@realm/Access-Request: Accounting Request (L2TP tunnel estblishment)

Our wholesale customers with their own broadband realms are able to subscribe to these messages on a per-realm basis, to see line bandwidth in “Connect-Info” (data quality may vary), as well as detailed “Calling-Station-Id” and other BNG information.

Message Format

The body of the message will be posted as a UTF-8 JSON-encoded payload. If multiple AV pairs exist with the same attribute name, then the value will be encoded as a list.

Common Attributes

These attributes are mapped to dictionary keys in all RADIUS accounting messages.

Realm: The wholesale realm to which the PPP session is connected, e.g. z.dsl.faelix.net.
User-Name: User-Name as sent through on PPP session. Will include XDSL LNS Session Steering "+ route", e.g. Fx00000000+man@z.dsl.faelix.net
FAELIX-Internal-Realm: The internal realm to which the PPP session is connected (see XDSL LNS Session Steering), e.g. man.z.dsl.faelix.net.
FAELIX-RADIUS-Server: Which RADIUS server proxied this accounting message to the MQTT broker, e.g. rey.man.uk.direct.faelix.net.
Event-Timestamp: RFC822-formatted timestamp from LNS, e.g. Aug 20 2021 06:12:58 UTC.
Time: UNIX timestamp from RADIUS server, e.g. 1629439978.719206.
Acct-Status-Type: Will be one of Start, Stop, or Interim-Update.

Addressing

This set of attributes is related to the IP addressing associated with the PPP user and current session.

Framed-IP-Address: IPv4 address of the client end of the PPP session.
Framed-Route: Additional IPv4 routes for your PPP session. May be missing, a singleton, or a list.
Framed-IPv6-Prefix: IPv6 subnet routed to your PPP session.
Framed-IPv6-Route: Additional IPv6 routes for your PPP session. May be missing, a singleton, or a list.
Called-Station-Id: Which LNS the PPP session is established with. Not sent by MikroTik LNSs.
NAS-Identifier: Which LNS the PPP session is established with. Not sent by VyOS LNSs.
NAS-IP-Address: IP address of LAC establishing the session. Not sent by VyOS LNSs.
Calling-Station-Id: Address of LAC or other L2TP client. Usually either an IP address or a LAC/port identifier.

Interim Updates

Approximately every five minutes an “Interim-Update” will be sent through containing the following attributes. The “Stop” message at the end of the session will also include this data.

Acct-Input-Packets: Total number of packets received from the client during this session. 32-bit number.
Acct-Output-Packets: Total number of packets send to the client during this session. 32-bit number.
Acct-Input-Octets: Total number of bytes received from the client during this session. 64-bit number.
Acct-Output-Octets: Total number of bytes send to the client during this session. 64-bit number.
Acct-Session-Time: Number of seconds that this session has been active. 32-bit number.

Access Request

When a broadband connection enters our network our tunnel-steering RADIUS servers determine which L2TP Network Server the session should be directed to. These “Access-Request” messages contain the following AV pairs of interest. These messages are only for session establishment (no steering is done at session end).

Connect-Info: String describing broadband speed or sync speed. Data quality is mixed.
Connect-Info-Tx: Where Connect-Info can be parsed: the transit rate in bits per second.
Connect-Info-Rx: Where Connect-Info can be parsed: the receive rate in bits per second.
Calling-Station-Id: Long string which encodes the port information on the BNG. Data quality is mixed.
NAS-Identifier: Identity of the wholesale provider BNG.