Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

I like that idea.  I had a h*ll of a time config'ing iptables on a dual ssid dd-wrt wrt54g and could really use the practice!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Krenz" <mark@slugbug.org>
To: "Bloomington LINUX Users Group" <blug@cs.indiana.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2011 10:04:08 AM
Subject: Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 02, 2011 at 11:32:44AM GMT, Kelly McEvilly [kellym@wbhcp.com] said the following:
>
> Sadly, I have the same crappy Westell modem from Smithville at home. Soon, they are gonna cut a trench across my yard and run fiber to my house and I'm hoping I'll get a serious upgrade in equipment from them when that happens.

 Since this is the Linux Users Group, I would suggest that when you get
fiber to the house that you change your router to a Linux router setup
on a low end PC. You should still pick reliable parts, but you can find
some old Pentium 3 or 4 for $50 that you could slap an extra network
card in and be fine. It will be much more reliable and flexible.  You
can even use one of the free router/firewall distributions such as
SmoothWall, pfSense, Endian, etc. There are a ton of them. The only
thing is that it'd use more power than one of the home broadband
routers.

  Smithville basically just gives you an ethernet jack hooked up to
their fiber-ethernet adapter, which you don't have to mess with.

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

Yep.  That's the setup I use already except I don't think it's a WRT54GL.  I think it's just a WRT54G.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simón Ruiz" <simon.a.ruiz@gmail.com>
To: "Bloomington LINUX Users Group" <blug@cs.indiana.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2011 12:00:25 PM
Subject: Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Beartooth <beartooth@beartooth.info> wrote:
>        Along that line, you might want to get the Linksys
> WRT54GL and flash it to dd-wrt. I have that behind a cable modem
> (can't get DSL at all, much less fiber), and it's doing fine.
>
> --
> Beartooth Staffwright, Not Quite Clueless Power User
> Remember I know little (precious little!) of where up is.

Vote two for dd-wrt, and WRT54GLs. A little older technology (100Mbps
wired, G wireless), but solid.

The only issues I've had with the dozens of them that we've been using
for years is that, sometimes, when there is a power surge, one of them
will freeze up and needs to be power cycled.

Simón

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Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Beartooth <beartooth@beartooth.info> wrote:
>        Along that line, you might want to get the Linksys
> WRT54GL and flash it to dd-wrt. I have that behind a cable modem
> (can't get DSL at all, much less fiber), and it's doing fine.
>
> --
> Beartooth Staffwright, Not Quite Clueless Power User
> Remember I know little (precious little!) of where up is.

Vote two for dd-wrt, and WRT54GLs. A little older technology (100Mbps
wired, G wireless), but solid.

The only issues I've had with the dozens of them that we've been using
for years is that, sometimes, when there is a power surge, one of them
will freeze up and needs to be power cycled.

Simón

_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug

Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, 2 May 2011, Mark Krenz wrote:

> On Mon, May 02, 2011 at 11:32:44AM GMT, Kelly McEvilly
> [kellym@wbhcp.com] said the following:
>>
>> Sadly, I have the same crappy Westell modem from Smithville at
>> home. Soon, they are gonna cut a trench across my yard and run
>> fiber to my house and I'm hoping I'll get a serious upgrade in
>> equipment from them when that happens.
>
> Since this is the Linux Users Group, I would suggest that when
> you get fiber to the house that you change your router to a
> Linux router setup on a low end PC. You should still pick
> reliable parts, but you can find some old Pentium 3 or 4 for
> $50 that you could slap an extra network card in and be fine.
> It will be much more reliable and flexible. You can even use
> one of the free router/firewall distributions such as
> SmoothWall, pfSense, Endian, etc. There are a ton of them. The
> only thing is that it'd use more power than one of the home
> broadband routers.

Along that line, you might want to get the Linksys
WRT54GL and flash it to dd-wrt. I have that behind a cable modem
(can't get DSL at all, much less fiber), and it's doing fine.

--
Beartooth Staffwright, Not Quite Clueless Power User
Remember I know little (precious little!) of where up is.

_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
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Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Kirk Gleason <kgleason@gmail.com> wrote:
> This I am interested in. We recently moved to UVerse, and I have what I
> think is a relatively new config. I have an external (as in outside) iNID,
> and then a 2Wire wireless router inside. I *think* that the STBs are all
> hooked into the iNID, and the router is only used for wifi. Problem is that
> the DHCP server keeps quitting on me, and I can't figure out why. If I could
> turn it off I would, but as it is I have to reset the thing about 2x per
> week. If they have a bridge mode that tech support can enable, then I will
> be calling them tonight.

Try this:

http://forums.att.com/t5/Residential-Gateway/U-verse-for-BUSINESS-2Wire-3600HGV-bridge-mode-or-another-AT-amp/td-p/2707013

IIRC, these are similar to the instructions I followed, and the bridge
mode is actually called DMZPlus.

I didn't have to call support, I was able to configure it myself
through the web interface on the residential gateway.

Don't know if that'll work with your setup or not.

Kevin
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Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

This I am interested in. We recently moved to UVerse, and I have what I think is a relatively new config. I have an external (as in outside) iNID, and then a 2Wire wireless router inside. I *think* that the STBs are all hooked into the iNID, and the router is only used for wifi. Problem is that the DHCP server keeps quitting on me, and I can't figure out why. If I could turn it off I would, but as it is I have to reset the thing about 2x per week. If they have a bridge mode that tech support can enable, then I will be calling them tonight.

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Kevin Ratcliff <kevin@kevinratcliff.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Mark Krenz <mark@slugbug.org> wrote:
>  Since this is the Linux Users Group, I would suggest that when you get
> fiber to the house that you change your router to a Linux router setup
> on a low end PC. You should still pick reliable parts, but you can find
> some old Pentium 3 or 4 for $50 that you could slap an extra network
> card in and be fine. It will be much more reliable and flexible.  You
> can even use one of the free router/firewall distributions such as
> SmoothWall, pfSense, Endian, etc. There are a ton of them. The only
> thing is that it'd use more power than one of the home broadband
> routers.

I use an PC Engines ALIX board running pfSense and couldn't be happier:

http://pcengines.ch/alix2d1.htm

Very low power consumption and no moving parts. Uptime on mine is over
400 days now. I've had some power outages during that time, but even a
very small UPS will keep it running for a long time.

You should be able to find one for ~$100.

I have AT&T U-Verse and had to put the provided modem in some sort of
bridging mode before it would pass traffic to pfSense. Don't recall
the brand or model though.

Kevin

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--
Kirk Gleason

Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Mark Krenz <mark@slugbug.org> wrote:
>  Since this is the Linux Users Group, I would suggest that when you get
> fiber to the house that you change your router to a Linux router setup
> on a low end PC. You should still pick reliable parts, but you can find
> some old Pentium 3 or 4 for $50 that you could slap an extra network
> card in and be fine. It will be much more reliable and flexible.  You
> can even use one of the free router/firewall distributions such as
> SmoothWall, pfSense, Endian, etc. There are a ton of them. The only
> thing is that it'd use more power than one of the home broadband
> routers.

I use an PC Engines ALIX board running pfSense and couldn't be happier:

http://pcengines.ch/alix2d1.htm

Very low power consumption and no moving parts. Uptime on mine is over
400 days now. I've had some power outages during that time, but even a
very small UPS will keep it running for a long time.

You should be able to find one for ~$100.

I have AT&T U-Verse and had to put the provided modem in some sort of
bridging mode before it would pass traffic to pfSense. Don't recall
the brand or model though.

Kevin

_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug

Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

On Mon, May 02, 2011 at 11:32:44AM GMT, Kelly McEvilly [kellym@wbhcp.com] said the following:
>
> Sadly, I have the same crappy Westell modem from Smithville at home. Soon, they are gonna cut a trench across my yard and run fiber to my house and I'm hoping I'll get a serious upgrade in equipment from them when that happens.

Since this is the Linux Users Group, I would suggest that when you get
fiber to the house that you change your router to a Linux router setup
on a low end PC. You should still pick reliable parts, but you can find
some old Pentium 3 or 4 for $50 that you could slap an extra network
card in and be fine. It will be much more reliable and flexible. You
can even use one of the free router/firewall distributions such as
SmoothWall, pfSense, Endian, etc. There are a ton of them. The only
thing is that it'd use more power than one of the home broadband
routers.

Smithville basically just gives you an ethernet jack hooked up to
their fiber-ethernet adapter, which you don't have to mess with.

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug

Re: [BLUG] Att dsl

My own 2-cents on a topic that is constantly vexing me...

I have 4 locations using ATT DSL.  The Netopia's I have (3477's I think) are better then the Westell's.    Unfortunately, Motorola bought out Netopia and I honestly think what ATT supplies me with now from Motorola is even worse.  They set on a shelf as last ditch alternative in case the the Netopia's die.

Based on my own experience, your best bet is to call ATT tech support and ask them to help you put your modem into 'full bridge' mode.  You can then stick a router on the back side of the modem to handle authentication, NAT, SPI, encryption, port assignments, VPN's etc.  Most of my locations have a Cisco firewall behind the modem but two smaller locations use RV042 series firewall and they work very well 

Seriously, even the simplest Linksys router/firewall like the BEFSX41 is an electronic Fort Knox compared to the crappy modems the ISP's provide you.  Verizon is the same way.  I have their junk Westell's in a couple of location too.

Sadly, I have the same crappy Westell modem from Smithville at home.  Soon, they are gonna cut a trench across my yard and run fiber to my house and I'm hoping I'll get a serious upgrade in equipment from them when that happens.