Client provisioning is a daily task for an internet provider, both when installing new clients and during maintenance. In this process, in addition to the provider always having to provide a technician who performs, in addition to the physical installation, the logical configuration of inserting the VLAN, user and PPPoE password of the client in his CPE, we have some known problems, such as:

– Time demand for manual configuration

– Openness to human failures:

– PPPoE credentials error

– Vlan error

– User and password errors

– Does not meet the standard determined by the configuration provider

– Loss of configurations in resets of CPEs by customers.

I would say that this is the king of support tickets from a provider, where often the customer, looking to solve any problem at home, resets the equipment and is unable to configure it again. In this case, if telephone support is not able to assist the customer in the configuration, the provider will need to provide a live technician for the service.

And if you’ve read this far, you might be wondering if it’s really possible to solve this problem automatically. And the answer is yes! And we even have a range of scenarios and possibilities that allow us, in addition to automating the provisioning process, to make it self-reconfigurable, for the famous case of resets.

So without further ado, let’s put some scenarios and their possible implementations into play:

– Example implementation scenario:

  • OLT’s and ONT’s from the same vendor.
  • ONTs are router mode
  • PPPoE authentication

In the cases of access network equipment that are from the same manufacturer, we have the advantage that they “speak the same language”, and this helps us because in the vast majority of times, we manage to obtain the advantage of being able to automate the delivery and permanence of the configurations in the equipment.

Basically in OLT, we configure the parameters that will be sent by OMCI, containing information such as PPPOE user and password, WAN activation, NAT activation. Let’s see a practical example of configurations to carry out this process:

The settings that will be described in this example apply to:

– Huawei OLTs from the MA56xx and MA58xx series.

– Huawei ONT’s Router mode.

NOTE: Note that some commands are inside [chaves] indicating the name of each parameter, and should be changed to match the application scenario.

OBS: Note that some commands are inside wpcodeself indicating the name of each parameter, and must be changed to be in accordance with the application scenario. We recommend a profile for each VLAN, and we also recommend one VLAN per PON in the OLT.

Releasing configuration in OMCI mode:

In order to be able to deliver the settings to the ONU, we need to release the OMCI configuration method.

gpon ont home-gateway config-method omci

To enable NAT on the WAN:

To be able to bring up the ONT with active NAT, we create a WAN profile.

ont wan-profile profile-id [ID] profile-name [NOME-PROFILE]
nat enable
quit

Adding the ONT with user and password PPPoE:

The secret of the implementation is in this part, and the command ont ipconfig command is responsible for delivering the PPPoE to the CPE.

          gpon interface [FRAME]/[SLOT]
          

          ont add [PON] [ONT-ID] sn-auth [SERIAL-NUMBER] omci ont-lineprofile-id [ID] ont-srvprofile-id [ID] desc [DESCRICAO]
          

          ont ipconfig [PON] [ONT-ID] pppoe vlan [VLAN] priority 5 user-account username [USER-PPPOE] password [SENHA-PPPOE]

Creating WAN:

ont internet-config [PON] [ONT-ID] ip-index 0
ont wan-config [PON] [ONT-ID] ip-index 0 profile-id [ID-PROFILE-WAN]

Vlan delivery on LAN ports:

So that ethernet devices that are in front of the CPE understand the Vlan that we are delivering on the ports, we assume the native vlan mode:

ont port native-vlan [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 1 vlan [VLAN] priority 0
ont port native-vlan [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 2 vlan [VLAN] priority 0
ont port native-vlan [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 3 vlan [VLAN] priority 0
ont port native-vlan [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 4 vlan [VLAN] priority 0

Activating ports in route mode:

We set the route mode for the ports so that they are enabled for IP routing and DHCP delivery to devices connecting behind it.

ont port route [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 1 enable
ont port route [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 2 enable
ont port route [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 3 enable
ont port route [PON] [ONT-ID] eth 3 enable

NOTE: both when delivering the Vlan and when activating the route mode, we have an example made for ONT’s with 4 ports, but there are cases where this changes according to the number of ports available on the ONT.

Following the steps above in provisioning your ONT in route mode, it should already

– How can I automate this with my ERP system?

The above process can be performed manually, but to make it more effective, we can use ERP system provisioning scripts to carry out the provisioning process.

Below we have a script template that can be used, note that each variable is separated with #, and this must be checked with each system, so that they pass the variable or help in the development of the script.

interface gpon #subrack#/#slot#
ont add #pon# sn-auth #onu_mac# omci ont-lineprofile-id #vlan#
ont-srvprofile-id #vlan# desc #nome#
ont ipconfig #pon# #onu_numero# pppoe vlan #vlan# priority 5 user-account username #user# password #senha#
ont internet-config #pon# #onu_numero# ip-index 0
ont wan-config #pon# #onu_numero# ip-index 0 profile-id [ID-PROFILE-WAN]
ont port native-vlan #pon# #onu_numero# eth 1 vlan #vlan# priority
ont port route #pon# #onu_numero# eth 1 enable
ont port native-vlan #pon# #onu_numero# eth 2 vlan #vlan# priority
ont port route #pon# #onu_numero# eth 2 enable
ont port native-vlan #pon# #onu_numero# eth 3 vlan #vlan# priority
ont port route #pon# #onu_numero# eth 3 enable

– Extras:

There are also other things that we can deliver like PPPoE credentials like SIP data, or TR-069 automatic activation.

And speaking of the TR-069, this configuration mode works very well with it, as it guarantees IP communication, and the TR-069 in turn guarantees the complete management of the CPE, such as wi-fi, passwords, signal data, etc.

Want to know more about the TR-069? Read our article

FAQ:

  • Does this work for other OLT’s vendors?

The process described above was tested and approved in the Huawei OLT, some other vendors support this type of configuration, but for each one, the configuration mode is different.

  • Does this work for all ONT’s vendors?

No, the above process is only approved in Huawei-with-Huawei scenarios.

This article was written by Made4it consultant Rafael Henrique. If you have any questions regarding the article or how to perform this configuration on your network, talk to our team