Technical Resources
Places to look when you’re having problems
GEOIP
GeoIP is one of the most common problems to have as an ISP. If you are getting listed as a VPN or your coming up in a different place, this is where to look. The below data is taken from The Brothers Wisp and may or may not be the most recent data. Definitely check their page for an in depth article and other data.
INFO TAKEN FROM: https://thebrotherswisp.com/index.php/geo-and-vpn
| Company | Lookup Link | Corrections Link | Corrections Email |
| Maximind | https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-demo | https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip-location-correction/ | |
| IP2Location | https://www.ip2location.com/demo | [email protected] | |
| IPHub | Field on home page | Link on lookup results page | |
| dbip | Field on home page | Link on lookup results page | |
| IP Info | Field on home page | https://ipinfo.io/contact?s=correction | |
| IP-Geolocation | Field on home page | [email protected] | |
| IPligence | https://www.ipligence.com/geolocation | https://www.ipligence.com/contact | |
| IPIP | https://en.ipip.net/ip.html | [email protected] | |
| Neustar | https://www.home.neustar/resources/tools/ip-geolocation-lookup-tool | https://www.home.neustar/support | |
| InfoSniper | https://infosniper.net/ | https://infosniper.net/geoip-data-correction.php | |
| Digital Envoy | https://www.digitalelement.com/contact-us/ | [email protected] | |
| IPinsight | https://ipinsight.io/ | [email protected] |
The Brothers Wisp is a great place for technical data as well. Definetly check out there website(https://thebrotherswisp.com/)!
Experiencing an outage?
If you are getting reports of an outage, outside of your monitoring tools, the first place you should check is downdetector.com. A Surprising number of outages occur that are totally unrelated to your network but might seem like yours.
Monitoring tools
Outside of down detector how do you know if you have an outage? If you are relying on customers calling in, it might be time to implement some monitoring. This table is ordered in perceived popularity and is by no means all inclusive
| Librenms | By Far the most popular, Librenms makes it easy to get going. Though the install can be a bit daunting, once its up and running, it is “point and click” |
| Zabbix | Zabbix is definately the second most popular and has the opposite effect of Librenms – The install is straight forward, but adding devices and getting going can be a bit more daunting with the need for templates and many more steps |
| PRTG (PAID) | If you dont want to worry about setup, and want some support, PRTG is the way to go. |
| TICK / TIG Stack | a TICK / TIG Stack is a series of tools on top of an influxDB database and is highly customizable but has the downside of requiring every bit of customization. it is not for the faint of heart |
| Prometheus | Prometheus is another popular option, and many pieces of equipment have built in exporters for it which can make it a great choice |
| NetXMS | Another interesting choice, though i dont have a ton of experience with it, my first go around made it seem odly challenging not only to set up but to use |
| Cacti | An oldie on this list, but still very popular. Cacti allows for simple monitoring especially of bandwidth across links |
| Nagios | Nagios is another oldie on this list but is still popular and is the root for some of the other programs on here as well. |
Technical Blogs, Podcasts, and Videos
StubArea51.com
stubarea51 is run by Kevin Myers and is a “gold mine” of information for all things network-related
YouTube – StubArea51
The newest addition to stub area 51 – Kevin is making some awesome Youtube Videos!
YouTube – The Network Berg
The Network Berg is an excellent source of information for in-depth how-tos on networking and related
Packet Pushers
Packet pushers isn’t specifically ISP related, but are amazing technical podcasts worth a listen.
CRMs
CRMs – they all suck. Pick the one that has the features you need and the problems you can deal with
| CRM | Support | Outages | SelfHost | Popularity |
| Splynx | 5 | 5 | 3 | 18% |
| Sonar | 4 | 5 | 1 | 18% |
| UISP/UCRM | 2 | 5 | 5 | 33% |
| PowerCode | 5 | 13% | ||
| VISP | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10% |
SPLYNX
Splynx is a relative new comer to the field and is the most commonly recommended when questions about CRMs are asked. Its priced well and is rapidly developing. It has email based support that is extremely quick to respond. Unfortunately they recently migrated to a model requiring cloud deployment(though you still fully manage the VM). You can pay an additional charge to self host it. This move is to help their support staff have a stable standard environment. It has an excellent API, many integrations, TR069 Support, and built in IPAM
Sonar
Sonar is an okay solution as well. Though more pricey than Splynx, it offers a cloud first platform with on-site radius servers. One notable problem with this is the lack of CoA/PoD support in the modern version of freeradius. This may or may not be a problem for you as they do support usage of the mikrotik API to create firewall rules to disconnect customers.