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Sky Fibre Broadband & Now TV Setup Guide

Products:
Vigor 120
Vigor 130
Vigor 166
Vigor 2620Ln
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Keywords:
MER
Mac Encapsulated Routing
Now TV
Sky
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Sky Fibre Broadband Setup with DrayTek Routers

The UK ISP Sky utilises DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) for its Sky Fibre Broadband & Now TV VDSL2 (FTTC) Internet services.

When the router connects to Sky and requests an IP address, it sends DHCP option 61 (Client ID) along with the request to authenticate its access to the Sky Fibre Broadband network. If those details match Sky's requirements, the router is then assigned an Internet IP address by Sky's network. These details are specific to the router supplied by Sky.

It is possible to use an alternative router with the Sky's Fibre Broadband service, if that router is able to send DHCP option 61 when making DHCP requests to the ISP. This can be useful for features that the Sky router may not provide, such as the DrayTek Vigor 2862's VPN server facilities, or using multiple Internet connections for failover & load balancing.

DrayTek Vigor Routers To connect a DrayTek Vigor router to Sky's Fibre Broadband network, it will need to be configured to send DHCP option 61. When the DrayTek router is configured to request an IP using DHCP with Option 61 (Client Identifier) included, the Sky network will provide the DrayTek router with a valid Internet IP address. The DrayTek will then provide Internet access just as the Sky router would.
DrayTek Vigor Modems To use the DrayTek Vigor 130 modem with Sky Fibre Broadband, either with a DrayTek Vigor router or another manufacturer's router, set up the modem in Bridge mode. This allows the modem to pass-through the DHCP information to the router connected to it. The router connected to the modem needs to be set up for DHCP option 61 to receive an IP address from Sky.
Note - Cloning the Sky router's MAC address
This configuration does not require cloning the MAC address of the ISP router, the DrayTek router will be able to request its own DHCP IP lease and renew that without issue. IP addresses supplied via DHCP have a lease time that is specified by the DHCP server and at the end of this lease, the DHCP client renews its IP address lease to continue using it.
If the DrayTek router is configured to clone your Sky router's MAC address, that will allow it to temporarily use the IP address of the Sky router but it will not be able to renew its lease for the Sky IP address. This can result in a connection that works for a day or so, then loses connectivity once the DHCP lease expires.

The setup guide is broken down into these segments, start with the first section. If your router is missing any of the options or menu items shown, check that your router is supported in the Supported DrayTek Products tab:

Obtaining Login Details

How to obtain DHCP Option 61 Client ID details for use with Sky Fibre Broadband

DrayTek Router Setup

How to configure the DHCP options on DrayTek routers.

This guide covers all DrayTek Vigor routers that run DrayOS

Supported DrayTek Products List of products that support the DHCP options necessary for compatibility with the Sky Fibre network
Vigor 3900 & 2960 DHCP options 61 configuration on the DrayTek Vigor 2960 & 3900 routers with Linux-based OS
Vigor 2130 & 2750 Configuration of DHCP option 61 on the DrayTek Vigor 2130 & 2750 series routers

Obtaining Login Details

Obtaining Login Details

The ISP Sky is not normally able to provide a standard username or password for using alternative routers with their service.

It is not possible to retrieve the router username / password combination by copying it from the Sky router or calculating it.

Instead, DHCP option 61 details can be generated in the format that Sky's network requires, such as this example:

7c4ca5123456@skydsl|abcd1234

7c4ca5123456 @skydsl | abcd1234
Router MAC address / Username Sky's network ID Separator Password
12 Hexadecimal characters (0 to 9, a to f)     8 Hexadecimal characters (0 to 9, a to f)

The table above breaks down the elements of that string, which has the router MAC address used as the username, followed by Sky's network ID. This is separated from the password with a vertical bar / pipe "|" character. Don't use a password that's used for anything else, these details are sent to Sky's DHCP server in an unencrypted DHCP Request packet.

Another example that follows these requirements would be "aabbcc123456@skydsl|aabbccdd".

Once you've generated a suitable DHCP option 61 string, the DrayTek router can be configured to use that when connecting to the Internet:

  • The DrayTek Router Setup section has further setup details for routers that use "DrayOS", such as the Vigor 2862.
  • The Vigor 2960 & 3900 section details how to configure DHCP option 61 on the Linux-based Vigor 2960 & Vigor 3900 routers (requires 1.0.7 and later firmware)
  • The Vigor 2130 & 2750 section demonstrates how to configure DHCP option 61 on these router models.

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Comments

From: Ron
14/08/2021

It worked for my 2762


From: Grahame
02/08/2019

This works , but if you have google home or ubiquiti USG connected immediately to LAN1 , how do you get ipv6 working or setup bridge mode.
Spent ages trying to get ipv6 working connected to a ubiquiti network behind a usg.
See others in the users forum had the same issues.


From: rohit
28/05/2019

28.05.19
I must thank Ian above back in august 2018, for adsl2+, pppoa option works with nowtv hub2 on vigor 2862, not options 61/mpoa (tried and failed for many hours!). I used wireshark to extract username and password, left default mac address, and wan connection detection to ppp detect.
I am glad I eventually found this thread.


From: tffzeldar
08/03/2019

i tried this setup on my vigor 2850vn using sky q hub er115 and it would not give me an ip address i missed the obvious i had followed the instructions but needed to do the following.
in internet setup/general i needed to set to vdsl only and vlan tag enabled on 101. worked perfectly.

also i used wireshark to sky q hub to extract username password by connecting directly to network port and setting wireshark to capture router io defualt 192.168.1.1 and then filter out port 67


From: Harry
21/02/2019

Thanks Philip brown. Worked striaght away!


From: David
08/01/2019

As other have said, the process with Sky is now far more simple than this article makes out. You only need to add 61, there's not need for 60 or cloning MAC addresses now. However, I have found the Vigor 2862 to be consistently 3mbps slower than the Sky Hub and I cannot for the life of me work out why. When you only had 16mbps download to start with, losing 3mbps is quite a lot!


From: John
10/10/2018

As others have said, this guide is a little out-of-date depending on your needs.

My setup involves a Vigor 130 acting as a transparent modem and an OpenWRT device (Linksys WRT3200 to be precise) as router for connecting to Sky's Fibre service here in the UK.

The Vigor 130 stock settings can be kept as they are - the only change that I had to make was to enable bridge mode.

The instructions on how to enable bridge mode are here:
https://www.draytek.com/en/faq/faq-connectivity/connectivity.wan/how-to-use-pppoe-pass-through-and-bridge-mode-on-vigor130/


Once you've done that, you can login to OpenWRT, load the Interfaces page and change your WAN interface so that it uses "DHCP Client" as the protocol. You'll have to provide a value for the "Client ID to send when requesting DHCP" and "Vendor Class to send when requesting DHCP" fields within the "Advanced Settings" tab.

The client ID is the so-called option 61 (but you must enter it as a hexadecimal string) and the vendor class is the so-called option 60 string.

You can obtain your option 60 and 61 strings using the instructions here:
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/extracting-sky-router-passwords/59028-simple-tool-extracting-username-password-your-router.html

Another link which may be handy:
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-broadband-fibre-help/50483-generic-open-wrt-sky-fibre-mer-guide.html

Good luck!


From: Ian
10/08/2018

On a new customer NowTV ADSL2, not Fibre, broadband install using the NowTV Hub 2 NR801UK router the above instructions, and the updated instructions below, didn't work. After a lot of searching and trying different methods I can confirm that, at least for this ADSL2 broadband connection and using a Draytek 2830 router, using the MPOA settings with options 60 and 61 will not work. I tried this using the generic passwords and the user name and password extracted from the NowTV Hub 2 model NR801UK router.
I tried all of the various options and the only way to get it to connect was to use the PPOA option with these settings :-
Multi-PVC Channel: Channel 1
VPI: 0
VCI: 38
Encapsulating Type: VC MUX
Protocol: PPPoA
Modulation: Multimode
Service Name left empty
Username: This must be the user name extracted from your NowTV Hub2 router it's in the form of 7050afcXXXX@nowtv
Password: This must be the password extracted from your NowTV Hub2 router it's in the form of XXXXXXXX

I tried using a Sky Password Calculator website that gave a user name and password from the LAN MAC address of the route but that didn't give the correct user name or password for the NowTV router. I found this web site http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/extracting-sky-router-passwords/59028-simple-tool-extracting-username-password-your-router.html that has a link to a program and the instructions for using it to extract the user name, password and 60 and 61 strings for Sky routers. Using the program was very quick and easy and the user name and passwords worked, and were different to the ones generated using the online Sky Password Calculator.
The 60 and 61 strings would not work for the ADSL2 connection but they may work if you have a Fibre connection.

Hope htis will save other people a lot of time.


From: Wix
30/07/2018

I just got this to work on Irish Sky but it was a bit more difficult. Confirmed on a Dreytek 2862ac.

Firstly to enable WANOE on the Irish router you need to edit the html with inspect element in order to even see that option. Once you have that done you can go ahead and extract the username/pass/router info. There is code variables hinting that this is hidden on purpose.

Keep in mind that this MAC you get is not the same mac you have been using on your Sky Router, it's the MAC from the RJ45 port, not the RJ11 port you have previously been using. I used the MAC that I got in wireshark for everything and it worked, despite being a different nic. I did spoof to this MAC in the PPPoE page to be extra sure.

DHCP Client Options are the same as the guide, follow these.

The Irish FTTC routers use PPPoE so you need to enabled that tab instead of the MPoA/Dyanmic IP page.
Multi-PVC Channel: Channel 1
VPI: 8
VCI: 35
Encapsulating Type: VC MUX
Protocol: PPPoE
Modulation: Multimode

Username: @skydsl
Password:
Service Name: Sky (maybe not needed, but works for me).

VLAN tags are different on Irish infrastructure:

VDSL2 Customer Tag: Enabled
VDSL2 Customer Tag Value: 10
VDSL2 Customer Tag Priority: 0
VDSL2 Service Tag: Disabled (Pretty sure this needs to be disabled!)

Glad it's working now, this only took me 2 days...


From: Philip Brown
29/07/2018

For any one reading this who has a 2862 and the newer Sky Q ER110 modem, i have some good news, its a whole lot simpler than this guide suggests. Firstly you can't wire shark the new modem, so you can ignor that whole section. But secondly Sky has changed how strict it is. As a result daytek need to update their guide.

The username and password can be generic under the option 61. For example i used customer@skydsl|abcd1234. There is no need for option 60 and you don't need to cloan your existing routers MAC address. The DHCP clien option it under WAN > Internet Access > DHCP Client Option (its a button below the table)

Under the MPoA / Static or Dynamic IP bit i left everything default and set it to enabled. Just make sure you set it to obtain an IP automatically.

Once rebooted that was it. It very simple, there just doesn't appear to be any information on the latest 2862 modem and how to do it with the latest SKy Q modem so hopefully this saves you a lot of googling.

Note to draytek update your guide, its very out of date!!


From: Mark
25/06/2018

Seems to work fine. It should be noted that (with NowTV at least) you can just make up a username/password combo so those averse to Wireshark sniffing, you can try it with something like bob@bob.com|123passwd and use the option 60 string from the Telnet method section.


From: mike
21/01/2018

Worked perfectly. Best guide I found on the interent for configuring Nowtv (sky).
Only pity is that it is only available for registered users


From: Mike
09/12/2017

Followed these instructions with a 2862n, worked perfectly with Sky Fibre Max.

Now I just need to find out if Draytek devices support the IPV6 settings required for enabling IPv6 as my own trial with a couple of different settings have not been successful.


From: Nick
13/09/2017

The same process works for NOWTV as they share the SKY network. Have just had one user change ISP from SKY to NOWTV and all of the required processes were identical.


From: Keith
04/07/2017

Worked fine for me. I didn't even have to change the mode of the Sky Q hub. I just connected my laptop via Ethernet (USB ethernet adaptor - please install USB component of Wireshark) to the hub's port 2 and captured some traffic, whilst it was in normal operation, and the bootp data was there. Result :)


From: Jamal
25/04/2016

Worked perfectly!


From: Jonathan
12/04/2015

For my option 61, I had to delete "=#" from the beginning, sot just asingle "=". Otherwise, worked perfectly.