IPv6 support on Virgin media

[dgcarter]

Does anyone know whether (and if so when) Virgin plan to implement IPv6 on its network?

[TonyJr]

---

@ksim wrote:

I am using Mikrotik, the configuration was done using the console, standard "6to4 Tunnel" followed the documentation on HE site, no shaping is configured on the router (did a clean setup), VM hub is in modem mode. CPU usage on my Mikrotik as about 0%, the same configuration worked fine with other providers.

my traceroute:

traceroute -w 1 -n 216.66.88.98
 1  192.168.1.2  0.895 ms  0.245 ms  0.240 ms
traceroute to 216.66.88.98 (216.66.88.98), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 2  * * *
 3  62.255.32.121  11.692 ms  10.841 ms  10.045 ms
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  * * *
 7  62.254.42.174  22.375 ms  15.433 ms  15.507 ms
 8  * * *
 9  84.116.132.5  28.421 ms  27.805 ms  30.051 ms
10  84.116.130.102  36.167 ms  28.854 ms  27.145 ms
11  216.66.87.125  36.936 ms  28.858 ms  28.143 ms
12  184.105.80.37  48.856 ms  27.011 ms  28.013 ms
13  216.66.88.98  28.061 ms  27.859 ms  26.987 ms

---

I am using a very similar setup with a MikroTik CCR1009, but with VM business. I migrated from residential to businesses, just the modem was swapped same cable etc.

I am also seeing this throttling. It has been happening for more than 4 months for me, when I was on residential and has not changed since.

I am going to try to find out which hop the throttling occurs on.

TonyJr

[WiteWulf]

Here's the output of traceroute to my tunnel endpoint (216.66.80.26):

traceroute 216.66.80.26
traceroute to 216.66.80.26 (216.66.80.26), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  10.167.160.1 (10.167.160.1)  12.523 ms  9.657 ms  9.918 ms
 2  leic-core-2b-xe-830-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.13.254)  11.755 ms  12.652 ms  12.017 ms
 3  *  *  *
 4  *  *  *
 5  *  *  *
 6  *  *  *
 7  *  *  *
 8  de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5)  29.838 ms  29.711 ms  29.982 ms
 9  fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102)  29.890 ms  29.758 ms  30.965 ms
10  10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125)  28.937 ms  29.760 ms  29.856 ms
11  100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net (184.105.80.37)  31.989 ms  32.701 ms  34.981 ms
12  tserv1.lon1.he.net (216.66.80.26)  30.874 ms  32.746 ms  35.857 ms

Also seems to be dancing through hops in France and Germany, if the names are to be believed 🤔

FWIW, if I traceroute to the same HE endpoint from work (on JANET) the traffic goes straight from ja.net to he.net via peering in London. I think VM's routing to HE may be a little screwy, or they simply don't have any peering in the UK with them?

[Tudor]

I thought JANET now used VM business, maybe not.

[Anonymous]

JANET may purchase transit from VM but they also peer directly with many many other networks. They have a direct peering relationship with HE as you can see here: https://bgp.he.net/AS786

The route VM traffic to going to HE is very odd. It seems to be because they get their upstream from Core Backbone Gmbh (in Germany) as part of the Liberty Global group. They in turn appear to peer in Paris with Hurricane Electric.

Have prodded the HE looking glass server (web traceroute)(https://lg.he.net/) and it seems that traffic can go directly from their facilities in London to my VM IP. This looks like some specific traffic engineering or a configuration **bleep** up.

[ksim]

HE has an exchange with VM https://bgp.he.net/AS5089 in London, but looks like VM engineers are not that good.

[WiteWulf]

Indeed, if I traceroute (IPv4) to my HE endpoint from work (JANET) it's a much more direct route than over IPv4 from home (Virgin Media). VM and HE are both present in LINX LON1, and JANET peers all over the place. Whacky routing by VM.

(When I say "more direct", it's only one more hop, but it's not going half way around Europe as part of it).

I wonder what difference it would make using HE's French or German tunnel endpoints? Time to experiment....

[WiteWulf]

Okay, if I'm reading this right, "de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0" has 'de' signifying Germany and 'fra' for Frankfurt. Likewise, 'fr' is for France and 'par' is Paris on the VM/Liberty/aorta side of things.

traceroute from VM, Leics to Frankfurt tunnel endpoint:

traceroute to 216.66.80.30 (216.66.80.30), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  10.167.160.1 (10.167.160.1)  12.181 ms  9.622 ms  8.064 ms
 2  leic-core-2a-xe-823-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.13.213)  8.880 ms  9.737 ms  9.947 ms
 3  *  *  *
 4  *  *  *
 5  86.85-254-62.static.virginmediabusiness.co.uk (62.254.85.86)  22.562 ms  19.373 ms  20.870 ms
 6  *  *  *
 7  de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5)  32.373 ms  32.800 ms  35.979 ms
 8  fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102)  37.874 ms  30.552 ms  32.087 ms
 9  10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125)  29.961 ms  31.679 ms  29.924 ms
10  tserv1.fra1.he.net (216.66.80.30)  29.954 ms  32.704 ms  38.045 ms

...so this loops *through* Paris.

traceroute from VM in Leics to Paris tunnel endpoint:

traceroute to 216.66.84.42 (216.66.84.42), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  10.167.160.1 (10.167.160.1)  13.486 ms  9.700 ms  16.997 ms
 2  leic-core-2a-xe-823-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.13.213)  8.867 ms  10.688 ms  9.963 ms
 3  *  *  *
 4  *  *  *
 5  86.85-254-62.static.virginmediabusiness.co.uk (62.254.85.86)  23.478 ms  19.851 ms  22.928 ms
 6  *  *  *
 7  de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5)  30.925 ms  30.713 ms  30.911 ms
 8  fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102)  36.001 ms  37.771 ms  29.882 ms
 9  10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125)  29.958 ms  31.703 ms  29.980 ms
10  100ge1-1.core1.par2.he.net (72.52.92.13)  44.851 ms  34.756 ms  42.354 ms
11  tserv1.par1.he.net (216.66.84.42)  35.493 ms  42.699 ms  35.976 ms

...so you'd expect using the Paris endpoint would be closer, but no 🙄

I thought I'd traceroute all the HE tunnel endpoints in Europe from my VM connection. Everything transits that de-fra/fr-par pair, but Frankfurt is the nearest at 10 hops and Budapest and Warsaw are the furthest at 15 hops. I might mtr them overnight and get a better idea of latency along those routes...still doesn't address the traffic shaping issue, though.

[ksim]

one small thing, my upload speed is not shaped it went up with the plan update and bigger than download now, the cap might be caused by the short route back from HE to VM, rather the long way to, lower response times from the endpoint than 1 hop before is the evidence of this, maybe badly implemented DDOS protection somewhere. 

 2. ???
 3. brhm-core-2a-xe-022-0.network.virginmedia.net  0.0%    25   11.6  15.6   9.6  44.8  10.0
 4. ???
 5. ???
 6. ???
 7. m686-mp2.cvx1-b.lis.dial.ntli.net              0.0%    24   13.8  16.5  13.5  30.5   3.9
 8. ???
 9. de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net                 0.0%    24   29.8  29.4  26.1  37.8   3.4
10. fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net                0.0%    24   28.6  28.7  26.3  35.4   2.3
11. 10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net                     0.0%    24   26.5  29.1  26.1  36.3   3.6
12. 100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net                     0.0%    24   27.3  30.6  25.4  61.4   7.6
13. tserv1.lon2.he.net                             0.0%    24   25.3  26.2  24.3  34.2   2.3

[Anonymous]

Interesting.

I've run a few traceroutes and VMs routing is odd. Using the HE looking glass server I get the following traceroute back to my IP:

core2.lon1.he.net> traceroute 94.173.xx.xx  source 216.218.252.118
  traceroute to 94.173.xx.xx (94.173.xx.xx), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets

 1  100ge7-2.core1.lon2.he.net (184.104.192.133)  19.710 ms  19.433 ms  19.457 ms

 2  lgi-upc-as6830.10gigabitethernet3-4.core1.lon2.he.net (216.66.80.118)  12.540 ms  12.556 ms  12.553 ms

 3  * * *

 4  uk-lon01b-ri1-ae25-0.aorta.net (84.116.136.102)  12.823 ms  13.014 ms  13.048 ms

 5  * * *

 6  sgyl-core-2a-ae11-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.254.42.149)  26.261 ms  25.564 ms  25.694 ms

 7  sgyl-cmts-39-tenge414.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.46.122)  25.232 ms  25.288 ms  25.228 ms

 8  94.173.xx.xx (94.173.xx.xx)  32.772 ms  31.199 ms  35.589 ms

If I go the other direction from my IP to the HE looking glass server:

traceroute 216.218.252.118
traceroute to 216.218.252.118 (216.218.252.118), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  10.234.180.1 (10.234.180.1)  7.090 ms  10.206 ms  7.147 ms
 2  sgyl-core-2a-xe-211-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.0.89)  7.848 ms  10.509 ms  8.800 ms
 3  *  *  *
 4  86.85-254-62.static.virginmediabusiness.co.uk (62.254.85.86)  20.546 ms  19.560 ms  19.900 ms
 5  *  *  *
 6  de-fra04d-rc1-ae56-0.aorta.net (84.116.132.5)  31.881 ms  44.774 ms  31.687 ms
 7  fr-par02b-rd1-ae102-0.aorta.net (84.116.130.102)  34.851 ms  33.040 ms  31.759 ms
 8  10ge10-2.core1.fra1.he.net (216.66.87.125)  31.671 ms  31.542 ms  31.989 ms
 9  100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net (184.105.80.37)  34.437 ms  31.301 ms  33.263 ms

So going out goes via the Liberty Global European transit connection but coming in comes via a direct peer with Hurricane Electric. That's some interesting traffic engineering going on there. Perhaps they are trying to balance traffic levels or some other ISP black magic that is beyond my ken.

Perhaps it's time for those affected to take this up in a new thread on the "Speed" forum to get it escalated?

[fyonn]

so we're getting on for two months now with no further update...