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----
-title: "Ubiquiti EdgeRouter on Deutsche Telekom GPON Fiber"
-date: 2022-02-21T20:00:00+01:00
----
-
-Disclaimer
-==========
-
-I provide this guide as a reference for other knowledgeable users without any warranty. Please feel free to use this as
-a resource but do not hold me responsible if this does not work for you. There is a significant chance that due to an
-error on my side or due to Telekom changing their setup this guide will not work for you, and you may end up having to
-pay for an unsuccessful Telekom technician visit. That is your own risk, and I do not assume any liability.
-
-Tl;dr
-=====
-
-The "Telekom Digitalisierungsbox Glasfasermodem" is a GPON ONT in SFP form factor that works with an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter
-6P's SFP port. You can order it from Telekom or other vendors using the Telekom P/N 40823569 or its EAN 4718937619382.
-It costs about the same as the separate plastic box modem, but saves a lot of space and does not require a separate
-power supply.
-
-To configure, first access the SFP ONT's web interface at ``10.10.1.1`` by configuring your SPF port's IP to static
-``10.10.1.2``. User credentials are either admin/admin or admin/1234. In the web interface, set put PLOAM password into the
-"SLID" setting in ASCII mode, then save & reboot the device. Now, configure PPPoE on the router's SFP port using the
-PPPoE UID ``[anschlusskennung] [zugangsnummer] "#" [mitbenutzernummer] "@t-online.de"`` and your "Persönliches Kennwort" as
-PPPoE password. Set the VLAN to ``7``, and you are good to go.
-
-Background
-==========
-
-I moved into a new apartment that has a fiber internet connection operated by Deutsche Telekom. Having made some poor
-experiences with AVM's FritzBox brand of routers that is commonly used by German carriers, I decided to use my own
-Router instead of the one provided by Deutsche Telekom. Like other German providers, Telekom charges exorbitant amounts
-in monthly fees for their routers, so even though my choice ended up being a high-end piece of commercial equipment I
-will still be cheaper than going with Telekom's much shittier device when added up over a two-year contract period.
-
-The hardware I chose is the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 6P. This device is from Ubiquiti's commercial lineup and is intended to
-power something like a small branch office of a company. It comes in a small form factor (as opposed to larger rackmount
-units), it does not consume a lot of power, it has five PoE-capable Ethernet ports which I can directly connect up to
-the Ubiquiti Unifi UAP access point that I already have, and it has a powerful configuration interface. It can even
-act as a VPN endpoint!
-
-Telekom's fiber internet offering for residential customers is GPON-based. GPON stands for "Gigabit Passive Optical
-Network" and means that instead of patching through one fiber or pair of fibers to each customer, several customers in
-one building are connected to a single fiber through optical splitters. These optical splitters are passive, i.e. they
-are just fancy pieces of glass and fibers and do not require electrical power. The advantage of GPON is lower initial
-cost for the operator, the disadvantage is that competing providers can only ever hope to get traffic handed through by
-Telekom and will never be able to use their own equipment on the "network" end of the fiber.
-
-Telekom wants you to connect to its fiber network through a small plastic box that they call "modem", and that the rest
-of the world calls "ONT", or Optical Network Terminator. Telekom's ONT has an upstream optical port with an LC
-connector, and a regular RJ45 ethernet port downstream. The "modem" in fact contains an entire linux system that
-terminates the ITU-standard suite of protocols that is used to manage what happens on the fiber, e.g. scheduling of
-transmission slots and adjustment of transmitter laser power.
-
-Looking at Telekom's plastic box ONT and my nice and shiny EdgeRouter, I was not a fan of this solution. Doing some
-research I found out that you can in fact get GPON ONTs in an SFP module form factor. My EdgeRouter has an SFP slot, so
-if I could get one of these that is compatible with Telekom's GPON flavor I could theoretically just plug it into my
-EdgeRouter's SFP slot with no separate power supply needed, saving a lot of space in the process.
-
-Finding a GPON SFP ONT that is compatible with Telekom's network turned out to be the hard part. While there are lots of
-commercial devices that look like they *should be* compatible, I could not be sure and I did not feel like sinking lots
-of money and weeks of trial and error into figuring out which are and which are not. After about half a dozen calls with
-various Telekom customer service departments I found the solution that ultimately ended up working: For their business
-customer fiber internet offering, Telekom uses the same GPON standard, but different ONT equipment. Their router for
-business customers is called "Digitalisierungsbox" and it in fact comes with an SFP GPON ONT. And, as it turns out, you
-can order that SFP GPON ONT separately for about 50 € (the same as the plastic box one) from either Telekom or a number
-of independent online stores. The Telekom part number of the thing is 40823569, the EAN is 4718937619382.
-
-Below is a list of steps that I had to undertake in order to get my EdgeRouter/SFP ONT setup to work.
-
-Hardware Setup
-==============
-
-The hardware setup is really simple. The SFP ONU is plugged into the EdgeRouter's SFP port. The ONU is connected to
-the Telekom Fiber through the LC/APC to SC/APC adapter cable that is included in its package. Telekom's technician will
-install an LC/APC coupler to join both cables. To configure the EdgeRouter, connect yourself through an ethernet cable
-*on port 2*. Ubiquiti's setup wizards assume the WAN interface is either port 1 or the SFP port (port 5), and default to
-use port 2 as their LAN interface even when port 5 is configured as the only WAN port. The default IP for the EdgeRouter
-is ``192.168.1.1``, and the default UID/PW is ubnt/ubnt.
-
-Configuration
-=============
-
-Getting access to the SFP ONU's config interface
-------------------------------------------------
-
-In this section I am assuming you want to configure the SFP ONU while it is plugged into the EdgeRouter from a laptop
-connected to the EdgeRouter's ethernet port 2. To do this, we have to first configure the right IP/subnet on the
-EdgeRouter's SFP interface, then patch connections between the SFP ONU and the laptop through the EdgeRouter.
-
-1. First, inside the EdgeRouter's config interface we need to configure a static IP with accompanying SNAT rule on the
- SFP port to allow us to access the SFP module's web interface through the laptop connected to the EdgeRouter. For
- this, configure the eth5 interface (which is the SFP port) to use the static IP ``10.10.1.2/24``.
-
-.. raw:: html
-
- <figure style="width: 20em">
- <a href="images/edgerouter_sfp_config.png">
- <img src="images/edgerouter_sfp_config.png" alt="The EdgeRouter's graphical configuration interface showing IP
- address 10.10.1.2/24 being configured for interface eth5, which is the SFP interface." data-pagefind-ignore>
- </a>
- <figcaption>SFP interface configuration to access the SFP ONU from a laptop connected to the EdgeRouter's LAN
- port</figcaption>
- </figure>
-
-2. With the SFP port assigned an IP address, we need to add a NAT rule to forward connections from the configuration
- laptop on eth2 to the SFP port. We do this by adding a source NAT rule with masquerading enabled, for the TCP
- protocol, with destination address ``10.10.1.0/24`` (the SFP config interface's private network).
-
-.. raw:: html
-
- <figure style="width: 20em">
- <a href="images/edgerouter_snat_config.png">
- <img src="images/edgerouter_snat_config.png" alt="The EdgeRouter's graphical configuration interface showing a
- source NAT being configured for interface eth5 for TCP protocol connections to destination address 10.10.1.1
- using masquerading." data-pagefind-ignore>
- </a>
- <figcaption>Source NAT configuration to access the SFP ONU from LAN. eth5, masquerading on, TCP, destination
- 10.10.1.1 (the SFP ONU's IP).</figcaption>
- </figure>
-
-3. Finally, make sure that your laptop will actually use the EdgeRouter as its gateway for IPs within ``10.10.1.0/24``.
- On the laptop, disable any VPNs, disconnect your Wifi and make sure that IP r shows a default route pointing at the
- EdgeRouter's ``192.168.1.1``. If that isn't the case, on Linux you can manually add the necessary route by using
- ``sudo ip r a 10.10.1.0/24 via 192.168.1.1 dev enp5s0``
-
-After setting up this temporary route, you should be able to access the SFP ONU's configuration web interface by
-pointing a browser at ``http://10.10.1.1/`` Just make sure you use plain-text HTTP here, not secure HTTP**S**. The
-default login credentials for the device are admin/1234.
-
-.. raw:: html
-
- <figure style="width: 30em">
- <a href="images/sfp_onu_web_if.png">
- <img src="images/sfp_onu_web_if.png" alt="The SFP ONU configuration web interface is a basic-looking website with
- a big Zyxel logo on it. It has menu options named status, setup and management. It shows a system overview
- page that lists the device's uptime and software version." data-pagefind-ignore>
- </a>
- <figcaption>The SFP ONU's web interface.</figcaption>
- </figure>
-
-Configuring the PLOAM password / SLID / ONT-Installationskennung
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-
-On the SFP ONU's web interface, we only have to change one single setting: Under "Setup", we have to set what the SFP
-ONU calls "SLID" to the PLOAM password for the interface. Telekom calls this the "ONT-Installationskennung". You get
-this from your Telekom technician. In the config interface, select ASCII mode and enter the number using the format
-``ABCD000000`` with four capital letters followed by six zeros. If necessary, you can read the SFP ONU's serial number
-on this page.
-
-.. raw:: html
-
- <figure style="width: 30em">
- <a href="images/sfp_onu_ploam_pw_config.png">
- <img src="images/sfp_onu_ploam_pw_config.png" alt="The SFP ONU configuration web interface shows its SLID
- configuration page. A text field labelled SLID asks the user to enter a value of at most ten characters. As
- an example, abcdefg123 is listed." data-pagefind-ignore>
- </a>
- <figcaption>The SFP ONU's config interface to set SLID/PLOAM PW/ONT-Installationskennung.</figcaption>
- </figure>
-
-Press "Save Config" on the top right of the web page, then select "Reset ONU" and click "Apply" under the "Reset ONU"
-link on the left. Make sure to not select the factory reset option instead.
-
-.. raw:: html
-
- <figure style="width: 30em">
- <a href="images/sfp_onu_reset.png">
- <img src="images/sfp_onu_reset.png" alt="The SFP ONU configuration web interface shows its reset ONU page. There
- are two options labelled Reset ONU and Reset to factory default settings. The reset ONU option is
- selected." data-pagefind-ignore>
- </a>
- <figcaption>Rebooting the SFP ONU.</figcaption>
- </figure>
-
-With the ONU configured, after the reset the "GPON Information" page from the left menu under "Status" from the top menu
-should show ``GPON Line Status: O5``. You can now remove the SNAT rule and IP address from the SFP interface in the
-EdgeRouter's config. I recommend this since there is no way to change the ONU's default credentials, and leaving the
-SNAT rule in place makes it vulnerable to attacks from your LAN. If you use the EdgeRouter's setup wizard in the next
-step, that wizard will reset all of these settings.
-
-Configuring PPPoE and NAT
--------------------------
-
-Our ONU now has a low-level connection to Telekom's fiber network. The next step is to configure the EdgeRouter to
-authenticate with the ONU through PPPoE. The easiest way to do this is to use the EdgeRouter's "Basic Setup" wizard as
-described in the `EdgeOS User Guide`. In the wizard, select the SFP port (``eth5``) as the internet/WAN port. Select
-``Internet Connection Type`` as ``PPPoE``, then enter the PPPoE credentials you got from your Telekom technician. The
-password is your "Persönliches Kennwort" that you also use to log in to your customer account on Telekom's website. The
-account name is ``[anschlusskennung] [zugangsnummer] "#" [mitbenutzernummer] "@t-online.de"``, so something like
-``002712345678012345678901#0001@t-online.de``. Enable "Internet connection is on VLAN" and enter VLAN ID ``7``. This is
-necessary because of the way Telekom set up their triple play (TV/phone/internet) service. After following through with
-the wizard, your internet should be already working on port 2 of the router. Note that despite selecting the SFP port as
-the router's WAN port, the wizard will still reserve port 1 (``eth0``) for another WAN interface, so you will only be
-able to access the configuration interface through port 2 (``eth1``) after the wizard is done. You can of course change
-this later.
-
-That's it, you're done and your internet should be working!
-
-Having Fun with the SPF GPON ONU
-================================
-
-If you want to dig deeper into the internals of Telekom's GPON implementation, the SFP ONU's firmware is a great
-starting point. Default credentials are all admin/admin or admin/1234 and you can even get a regular busybox shell on
-the device through SSH. The device's firmware is based on OpenWRT, and the source for large parts of the core control
-components can be found under open source licenses as well. While I would strictly advice you to not mess around with
-the actual modem settings because due to GPON you share a medium with your neighbors and might very well disrupt their
-internet if you mess up, inspecting the ONU's firmware is a great way to learn about the inner workings of a modern GPON
-network.
-
-If you are interested in messing around with the SFP ONU, there is a github repository where interesting thins are
-collected `here <https://github.com/xvzf/zyxel-gpon-sfp/issues>`__.
-
-.. _`EdgeOS User Guide`: https://dl.ubnt.com/guides/edgemax/EdgeOS_UG.pdf
-