how to set up cable modem?

Forum: Networking
Topic: how to set up cable modem?
started by: randux

Posted by randux on Jan. 31 2006,18:57

I can't understand how to set up a connection to my ISP. damnsmalllinux is a great concept...now if I can only get it to work so I can get connected, I would really have something :;):

I have ethernet connected to a cable modem. In the dreaded windows/xp (may it soon be forgotten) I have some kind of object which represents the ethernet card and one which represents some kind of a "dialer." In that, I specify the ip address of my ISP, my user id, etc.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Rand

Posted by doobit on Jan. 31 2006,21:01

Normally, your cable modem uses DHCP to connect to the computer through the ethernet connection. DSL should detect your ethernet card in the computer when you boot up and then connect to the internet through your cable modem which has already detected your ethernet card's IP address using the DHGCP server. DSL has a DHCP client that allows the DHCP server to connect to it.
Some providers, usually the DSL ones, use PPPOe connections which require you to enter a password and user ID. DSL has tools for both of those in the DSL control panel.

Posted by randux on Jan. 31 2006,21:27

Thanks, man, but I'm still clueless. Can you gimme an idea of the steps in setting this up?

I need to understand how I get to the place where I can enter all the specifics in. If I have something to go on I can shut this down and boot up dsl. I also just downloaded the 2.2rc1 and I'll burn it in a minute. I only have one machine available at the moment which sucks since I can't see what people are saying to help me and try it at the same time.

The ethernet card is definitely detected. On Windows the connection uses PPTP VPN if that helps to understand what kind of connection I am trying to make.

Thanks.

Posted by doobit on Jan. 31 2006,21:38

OK, I may have confused you with the reference to DSL. I meant DSL the internet connection, not Linux. Anyway, VPN is a different animal. You are making a direct point-to-point connection with another computer that's providing the internet connection. I'm not sure how to do that with DSLinux since I've never tried it.
If you have your ethernet card plugged in and DSL booted up, then with DHCP it just works. With PPPOe you just need the extra steps of adding username and password, and maybe IP address or your gateway.
What happens when you open up Firefox after booting up DSLinux?

Posted by randux on Jan. 31 2006,23:20

I don't understand how to get to the screens where I enter this stuff in. I tried the pppoe but it seems to just lock up.

When my ethernet card enables the network connection, I'm connected to my cable provider. What I can't do is to connect to the ISP, because I don't know how to enter any details.

When I go to the internet, my cable provider gives me their welcome screen no matter what URL I use. This is what happens on Windows when I don't connect to my ISP.

The connection says "Optional encryption" so maybe VPN isn't used if it's not required. Let's forget about the VPN issue because the main thing is for me to know how to set up the connection. Basically, with cable, the ethernet card is connected to the backbone as long as the modem is on. But you have to tell the backbone which ISP to "dial." That's where I'm stuck. And the DHCP tab is already depressed in the system tool menu and I can't unpress it. I don't know what that means. It occasionally locks up the whole dialog and I can't get out of it, and the CPU runs to 100%.

Thanks again.

Posted by Randux on Feb. 01 2006,23:50

I can see the home page of my backbone provider from the web browser. This is exactly what happens if I open a browser in Windows but haven't "dialed" my ISP. So I don't think the problem is hardware- it's simply understanding how to set up the "dialer" for cable. The connection to the cable provider is working, from my pc, through the cable modem. The question now is how I tell my cable provider to gateway me to my ISP.

Maybe all of these distros just don't work with cable modems? It's not PPPOe, and it's not PPP. Maybe it's something no one tried to support.

Posted by doobit on Feb. 02 2006,13:34

That sounds like a typical point-to-point connection. If you can see theprovider's sign-in page, then you just need to find out how to send them your login information. I have not tried this with mine because my provider uses my modem's MAC address and IP as the login information, so I don't need to sign in everytime. I would call your provider and ask them for a suggestion at this point, because you are connecting to them, just not able to get past their internet gateway.

Posted by Randux on Feb. 02 2006,15:47

I think the mystery is solved, except that I still can't get it to work. I need to use VPN, as I mentioned in an earlier post. I need to install and configure a VPN client because of the way these brain surgeons set things up over here.

I found some scripts which are supposed to work but I couldn't install or customize them properly because of my complete lack of knowledge of linux. I think the guy who wrote those scripts made assumptions about the directory structure that are not true on any of the distros I've tried to run them on. The scripts are from one of my two ISPs but I configured both connections identically except for IP, userid/pwd so they should work in both places. I'm hoping someone can help me with this or also I found something that sounds good on
< http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/ >

Posted by Randux on Feb. 02 2006,18:28

I found from our linux user group that we can ask (insist :cool:

) that the cable provider use DHCP to gateway us to the ISP like everywhere else in the world. They did not want to admit it but I got him to say it at the end of the phone call. So now I am waiting for those guys to make my life easy and I won't have to learn how to set up VPN on 10 different live distros.

Posted by Randux on Feb. 02 2006,20:37

> I would call your provider and ask them for a suggestion at this
> point, because you are connecting to them, just not able to get
> past their internet gateway.

You should have heard this conversation. It went something like this:

Me: "I would like you to gateway me directly to ISP xxx using DHCP."

Them: "I'm sorry, we have nothing to do with it."

Me: "You guys are my cable provider, right?"

Them: "Yes, but it's up to the ISP. You got to our web page, that's all we can do. The ISP does the rest."

Me: "No. I got to your web page, and you decide where to route me. Do you think the ISP comes to get me?"

Them: "I'm sorry, we've done all we can, you got to our web page- your modem is working, there isn't anything we can do. We don't support linux and you are simply not going to be able to surf without a dialer."

Me: "You guys are in the middle, I come to you first, and then you send me to them. How do you think the ISP knows what to do?"

Them: "Ok, then tell them you want to surf without a dialer. If they approve it, we will do it for you."

:angry: