Jio Airfiber outdoor unit (CPE) connected to Openwrt instead of Jio Router

[adinetech]

Hey everyone,

Just got Jio AirFiber yesterday (100 Mbps plan). Initial speeds were not great (92 Mbps down, 25-45 Mbps up), but then things got weird. The speed suddenly dropped below 10 Mbps, both download and upload, and I realized the Ethernet link was stuck at 10M.

I'm not a fan of the Jio router (limited features), so I decided to use my OpenWrt router instead. I connected the AirFiber ODU (outdoor unit) directly to the Archer C6's LAN4 port.

Here's what I've achieved so far:

IPv6 Connectivity: OpenWrt is getting an IPv6 address via DHCPv6, but I'm not getting a prefix delegation like I do with the Jio router. This means my LAN devices can't get IPv6 addresses.
ODU Access: I managed to find the ODU's IP address using ip neigh on the OpenWrt router. I can ping it successfully, and wget shows I can reach the ODU's web interface.

While my LAN devices connected to the OpenWrt router can't access the internet (or ping the ODU) despite the above.

Prefix Delegation: How do I get my OpenWrt router to receive a prefix delegation from the Jio ODU so I can assign IPv6 addresses to my devices?
LAN Connectivity: What routing or firewall settings do I need to change on OpenWrt to allow my LAN devices to use the internet connection through the ODU?

My Setup;

ISP: Jio AirFiber (100 Mbps plan)
ODU: Jio AirFiber Outdoor Unit
Router: TP-Link Archer C6 running OpenWrt

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[justageeek]

Not exactly aware with Jio's Airfiber setup, but here's what you can probably do ...


If you have /64 prefix as a prefix delegation on your main Jio Router, like I have with Airtel, it can't be further divided into a /65 network.
( Reason being, Android Devices use only SLAAC ( Stateless Address Auto Configuration ) ,for which smallest prefix is a /64 )

In the above case,
the best option is : you need to put your device on bridge mode and make PPPoE related login via your openWRT WAN .

The other option that you have, is you can configure NDP proxy in your openWRT Rotuer....

In your openWRT router, go to Network>interfaces>br-lan- (edit) -> DHCP Server
( Click ignore interface, if it is going to cause a dhcp conflict ) --( would advise connecting Your JIO ODU to openWRT router on the wan side )

If it's not already enabled, do enable it. Go to IPv6 settings -
make RA service - to relay Mode
DHCPv6 service - to relay mode and
NDP proxy to relay mode

repeat the above for WAN side, except on Wan side -- inside IPv6 settings - click Designated Master.

This way, you will get ipv6 relayed from Jio router to your other devices.

 

[adinetech]

Thanks for your suggestions! I'm still learning about networking, and I realize I posted in the wrong section.

Your method did give my devices IPv6 addresses (via relay), but it still requires the Jio router, which I'm trying to eliminate. Plus, the WAN port on my OpenWrt router is already in use for my main BSNL Fiber PPPoE connection.

Now, the outdoor unit is directly connected to my openwrt without the Jio's Router. You can see the IPv6 there.

 

[justageeek]

As from your setup, though you have connected your Jio router to a LAN port on TP-Link, essentially the LAN port is behaving as a WAN port, separate from others.

Have to once check, but you will need some packages for openWRT like 'mwan3' so you will be able to do load balancing.

As for the Jio AirFiber, you will definitely require their ODU, you won't be able to eliminate it completely as it connects to the tower, but I am unaware if the ODU itself authenticates with Jio Server, or their Indoor Router does ( like particularly how you must be having on your BSNL, a PPPoE authentication with a username and password ) , or if it is some other protocol ( E-Sim based authentication ).

As what I saw in some videos, the airfiber indoor router has no WAN IPv4, and gets a IPv6 directly via DHCP-v6 along with a /64 prefix delegation. One Possibly might be that all IPv4 traffic is tunneled inside IPv6.

Regardless, IPv6 comes via DHCP-v6 .

Had it been a simple PPPoE type connection from the indoor jio router, you would have been able to do same directly via your openWRT router.
If it is via the ODU, you might be able to bridge the ODU and do it from your side ( given that you are able to access its settings and the ODU isn't shared with anyone else ) .

Or you might be able to try getting a WAN IPv6 via DHCP-v6 ( probably which is the same as what you are doing right now ), and with relay mode, get IPv6 addresses.

 

[adinetech]

I can confirm that both IPv6 and IPv4 (i.e., the internet) work perfectly when the ODU is connected to the Indoor Router (IDU), and the Indoor Router is connected to my OpenWrt router, running in relay mode. The communication between the ODU and IDU is solely over IPv6, and it receives a /64 IPv6 prefix delegation. However, when the ODU is directly connected to the OpenWrt router, it only gets a single IPv6 address instead of the prefix, which might necessitate using NAT on IPv6—an undesirable solution. - said by @albonycal

I have attempted to use 464XLAT (CLAT) on the OpenWrt for IPv4, but it didn't work.

It seems there was a slight misunderstanding: I wanted to eliminate the IDU, not the ODU. The ODU handles the authentication and delegates the IPv6 prefix to the Jio Router, which then assigns it to the LAN and uses 464XLAT(CLAT) for IPv4

I am doing this for three reasons:

1. Energy Saving: I believe it would use at least 15-20W (the rated supply is 12V 2.9A = 34.8w), as I have a off-grid setup of 7 kWh Lifepo4. I would like to avoid energy usage expansion for a few years.
2. Ethernet Negotiation Issues: Occasionally, the connection drops to 10Mbps, reducing the bandwidth from 90Mbps to around 8Mbps download. Upload speeds are another issue.
3. Locked-Down Device: The IDU is completely locked down. I use a TP-Link Deco X50 PoE as my AP and do not need the WiFi from the IDU, which I cannot disable.

 

[justageeek]

Just read about 464XLAT, wasn't much aware about it. thanks !

Found an article on OpenWRT Forum, a user probably using Jio AirFiber and openWRT probably managed to do the same.

You might need to ssh into your router via terminal / cmd by using 'ssh root@routerIP' to execute those commands.

 

[adinetech]

I see, let me check this. thanks!

Edit: I can see that his ODU has IPv4 while mine doesn't and I wasn't sure whether the internet is accessible on the wan2_v6 but I have a IPv6 address at the moment instead of a prefix.

 

[MrGordon]

In the above example, I don't think the user is using JioAirfiber ODU, it's a separate 5G CPE.

Anyway to answer your questions @adinetech, I have a 5G CPE and had run into a similar issue.

Please see this thread for more details - Sim based Router recommendation for 5G cellular network

With 464xlat configured correctly, you will be able to get IPv4 working without issues. Now, to get IPv6 working on the client devices, you'd need to follow this article - DHCPv6 from upstream /64 prefix from ISP's LTE router

Had talked about it in this post

 

[greghouse]

If you ever achieve this, please explain in detail. I too have Jio Airfiber 100 Mbps and an Openwrt router. I would somehow like to bridge the ODU directly to the router and not the IDU.

 

[adinetech]

@MrGordon , I'm trying to understand the article you shared, but in the meantime, 464XLAT (CLAT) should work without IPv6 PD, correct? In my case, it doesn't seem to be working. Could you please provide your wan6_4 configuration? (I confirmed this from the post you linked).