Cisco RV-340 Time to Tinker

[jasonreg]

I am curious if I can make use of the multi-Wan capabilities at home. I have a basic understanding of what is required (i.e. two ISP feeds to the Router) but the configuration and what it will actually do for me are somewhat of a mystery. With several teenagers + working from home, all our TV is streaming based etc. I see the available internet speed drop generally. My question is with two high speed connection (cost aside) can they be used simultaneously - one WAN for some services say streaming, and one for other uses?

 

[Trip]

If you're mainly looking to preserve quality-of-service, the first thing to address is QoS and/or queue management on the gateway, and potentially inside your LAN as well (switching and wifi). Presuming the primary WAN isn't too over-subscribed too often, a second WAN may not alleviate bandwidth constriction as much as you're hoping (it's usually better for redundancy purposes).

That said, we need more info to give you concrete guidance:
How many users and devices tend to be on your network during times of peak bandwidth contention, and what types of services are being used/consumed during those times? What type of internet (DSL, cable, fiber, etc.) and how fast (in Mb/s, downloa and upload) are your two WANs? How much could you upgrade either one if you chose to?

Presuming the primary WAN link is upgradeable and reliable enough, I'd probably just stick with a single WAN and refine your QoS approach.

 

[jasonreg]

So right now we have a single ISP through cable from the street. It provides Internet, Internet based TV service, and house main telephone line. Modem used is the Arris XB6 from Rogers (Canada) and the service is rated at 1Gbps down, 30Mbps up. This modem is bridged with WIFI disabled and connected to My RV340. IPS (with license) and Antivirus scanning are both enabled on the RV340. As I check right now I am seeing 300 down, 30 up. RV340 is connected to Main 48 port switch via 3 port LAG. A series of Cisco WAP 571 in a cluster are connected to the swatch and the switch serves the balance of wired connections the house. There is one additional 8 port switch further downrange in the rec-room distributing signal to the AV stack

Main Users / Uses of bandwidth:

• 5 Main users, two of which teleworking, two additional remote learning
• Heavy VTC (Teams/Zoom) use during the day
• 4 TVs drawing signal off internet (IPTV Service) – generally 2-3 in operation simultaneously
• Streaming services (Netflix, etc.)
• IP Phone for business and home IP phone (thought neither of these are high bandwidth I think)
• 5 – 6 computers in operation, including server
• 7-8 “i-devices”
• Smart Home devices (Alexa, light switches, thermostat etc.)

I am less worried (though I will appreciate the failover mode), what I am hoping is that I can configure the load balancing in such a way to ensure fastest connectivity possible. New potential ISP is available at speeds of up to 1.5Gpbs.

It may not be possible to do what I am after but hopefully there is. Appreciate any and all assistance / thoughts or ideas.

 

[coxhaus]

If you have a gig down and are only seeing 300 Mbps then I would think you have something configured which is causing this. I would try turning off IPS and Antivirus scanning first and see if your speed goes up which may solve your problem. The Cisco RV340 router is not a multi-gig router. If you are using your Cisco RV340 router for local routing then you may want to look to using a layer 3 switch. This depends on how your local network is configured. I would also setup QoS in a Cisco switch for IP phones though with a gig down and 30 Mbps I do not really see this as a problem with 2 IP phones. I have run 19 IP phones on less bandwidth using QoS on a Cisco switch flowing through a Cisco RV340 router.

At a gig level you really need a UTM device for IPS/IDS scanning. I would recommend running Untangle behind the RV340 router if you want serious scanning. You can install Untangle as a transparent bridge behind a router like a RV340 router. I did this a long time ago. There are very few cheap devices that can scan at gig rates on a serious level. Five users should not be a problem for a Cisco RV340 router. I had an office setup with 19 IP Phones and users which ran through a Cisco RV340 router and a Cisco layer 3 switch without issues.

So I guess you understand there is no reason to run a LAG since the RV340 router is not a multi-gig router. Yes you can LAG up to 4 ports but there is no reason to. You are much better off running a Cisco L3 switch for local routing. It will be much quicker than using any router. IPTV is not scanned but passed through so no real load. So I don't see anything you listed as a serious load. I do not see why you need an additional WAN line. Work on your configuration. What switch are you running?

I run a Cisco RV340 router at home using an Cisco L3 switch and 2 additional Cisco switches. My wife Zooms multiple times a day while I play a tank game with our TV streaming Hulu, Netflix, Prime and my granddaughter plays her game. We have lots of i-devices, iPhones, iPads doing Wi-Fi calling on Cisco WAP581 wireless APs and 2 security cameras running 24/7. And I can not get gig internet service so I am doing it on less bandwidth than you. As all of this starts working the only thing I notice is my ms time jumps from 30 something to 50, 60 or 70 ms time. There are no pauses or hesitations it all just runs.

I also have 3 Alexas or echos that we use for intercoms in a large house and Apple's HomeKit for controlling our lights and stuff. I guess I should add we use an iRobot VAC. We have a lot of IP devices.

 

[jasonreg]

Hi - yes I did try turning off IPS and Antivirus scanning first and did not see any effect on available download speed strangely enough. The RV340 is indeed being used for local routing. Would this cause slow downs in the RV340? Switch is Cisco SG250X-48. I suppose the second WAN was just a desire to determine of that could help the download speed issue. Feels like the layer 3 switch is perhaps the next step.

 

[coxhaus]

I would try to identify why you can't achieve a gig download before I did anything. Five users should not effect the router that much. Start with 1 PC and see if you can download close to a gig. Then start adding everything back. If you can't achieve close to one gig with 1 PC then something is set wrong in your router or your router modem is not passing a gig of data which you need to test with your 1 PC. Look at the review on this site for the Cisco RV345P which is the same router code with more ports and POE+ power. Maybe reset the router to defaults and run your 1 PC. Are you using the default QoS or have you changed it? With a gig internet pipe and 5 users I doubt you need QoS. You have about 200 meg per person with a gig internet pipe. That should be plenty of internet per person without QoS.

You are sure where you are testing you can achieve gig speeds right? The Cisco SG250X-48 shows as supporting layer 3 static routing. I think you have a layer 3 switch. You just need to configure it.

Your Cisco SG250X-48 shows to switch 130.94 capacity in millions of packets per second (mpps) (64-byte packets) which is pretty fast.

I have 3 examples on this site on how to setup a layer 3 switch. I have not used a SG250X switch but what I did should be very close.

 

[jasonreg]

OK that is very helpful. When I get some time later on today I will start tinkering. I was aware that the Cisco SG250X-48 supports layer 3 static routing - just not certain how to make that happen. I will search for your posts regarding the layer 3 setup and see what I can determine from that as well.

Many thanks - I will report back with results and/or further Qs. Jason

 

[Trip]

@jasonreg - I would start speed testing with the XB6 alone, with a single hard-wired client. Once you confirm gigabit there, reconnect and speedtest through the RV340, first with IPS/AV disabled, then enabled. If IPS is the culprit and you don't care so much about the speed cap, I suppose you could leave it on; otherwise, you'll either need to turn it off for full speed with the RV340 or run IPS/DPI on x86 hardware for filtering at gigabit speed. If you're still only getting 300Mb/s with IPS off, you might also try lowering the MTU on the WAN interface of the RV340. If no change still, I would factory-reset the RV340 and SG250X-48, load the latest firmware on each if you haven't already, then manually re-configure, being careful not to enable any service(s) that may bottleneck your throughput. If you fear a config change may cut speeds, confirm a gigabit wired speed test before the commit, then test immediately after the change goes live, before moving on to any further changes.

Regarding QoS, your traffic mix shouldn't need much in the way of prioritizing, shaping or queuing on the 1Gb download, but there's a chance the 30Mb upload may choke overall flow behavior at higher utilization levels -- perhaps even well before download ever saturates. I would go to dslreports.com/speedtest and report back your bufferbloat letter score. Although the "grade" is most relevant at full link saturation, it can still give you an indication of how your setup deals with higher levels of bandwidth contention. If it's much below a "B-" or so, you may want to think about playing with WAN queuing on the RV340, or potentially better still, putting in an SQM-capable gateway. While SQM itself isn't a single silver bullet, and won't guarantee top performance for any one particular client or service, it will almost always deliver better results to the entire population at large, than if you didn't have it. Combine that will more traditional prioritization and shaping, per your own policies, and you should be able to iron out most quality issues, regardless of if you stay on cable or move to a new fiber service, irrespective of if you have one or two WANs.

 

[coxhaus]

Yes, the Cisco RV340 router first. Get it downloading to 1 gig before you change anything.

 

[jasonreg]

OK, will have some dinner and start playing. I did do the dslreport - this was the response (interesting the download speed was so high) ......

 

[jasonreg]

Still only 300 down on fast.com and rogers.com

 

[jasonreg]

And with Desktop apps closed ....

 

[coxhaus]

OK, will have some dinner and start playing. I did do the dslreport - this was the response (interesting the download speed was so high) ......
View attachment 25629

Your BufferBloat is showing badly you need to go back to the original default QoS in the RV340 router. If you don't know what you changed then you will need to reset back to defaults and test with 1 PC before you change anything. Your BufferBloat should show better than that. Do not run anything on your PC except the test. I once showed bad tests using my PC and it turned out I had SPAM on my PC which was skewing the results

Would you mind doing a DSLreports speedtest with your PC plugged straight in to the bridged modem?

 

[jasonreg]

Direct connection (well through patch panel and wall wiring) from modem which is still bridged. That does seem to make a difference ..... Will runs some tests through the router and see what I can see. Is there a way to reset the QoS section of the router without resetting the entire router to factory defaults?

 

[coxhaus]

So you still are not hitting 1 gig internet even running directly connected. You need to figure out if it is your provider or your PC. I guess it could be your wiring, but that should be enough bandwidth for 5 users. So back to the problem. I would undo the LAG between the router and the switch and use port 2 on the RV340 router only for the uplink between the RV340 router and the SG250 switch. Do not plug anything else in the RV340 router. Where are we now?

Can we bypass the wall wiring and run a test?

 

[jasonreg]

Reset Router to Factory defaults. This is through the router now but then direct to my PC (i.e. not through the switch):

I should also say that I am seeing anything from 550 to average 650 to the above which was the highest.

On speedtest.net however I am seeing this (consistently):

 

[jasonreg]

I have also enabled IPS at the security level - no change to download speeds (good) and I tried enabling Antivirus which brought the download speed back down to 150Mbps down (not so good). I have antivirus on the PC naturally, but having it on the router seemed like a good back up. Would it be normal to see this decrease?

I am also using Port 2 (curious why this is a thing).

 

[coxhaus]

Scanning your traffic at gig speeds takes expensive equipment. The cheapest I know is Untangle on a big enough motherboard. I hate lag and scanning traffic creates lag unless you use a big powerful motherboard. I would leave off traffic scanning on the RV340 router. Use a secure DNS like QUAD9, 9.9.9.9. If you want to scan then take a look at Untangle as I mentioned above.

How is your network running now?

I would think about setting up the L3 switching.

If you have the license I would try turning on Cisco Umbrella. I don't have a license so I have not tried it.

 

[jasonreg]

It is certainly an antivirus issue. AV ON:

AV Off:

Both of these were through the Main switch with everything in the house connected both wired and wireless so, quite happy from a network point of view - many thanks for the assistance. I will look into taking the Layer 3 switching off the router as you suggest and look into both Quad9 and Untangle.

Again, many thanks for the help coxhaus - much appreciated.

 

[coxhaus]

We crossed paths. I added that I bet your license is good for Cisco Umbrella. I would try turning on it on. I have not used it and I would like to know what you think. I might buy a Cisco license to run Cisco Umbrella.