@home Users ....... or Comcast

[Dolo001]

I have been unable to get my linux computer set up with the networking i have tried dhcp and also entered in info manually still cant get eth0 up can someone help me out please?Btw this is Mandrake 8.1

[Cryonic]

If your @home is like the @home network here, then it only allows ONE MAC address to be used per household unless you are paying for extra IPs. To fix this you will have to either get a router (netgear or linksys) and have the modem hook straight into that. You will have to power cycle the modem and/or call your @home provider and get them to clear the MAC address that they have for you.

Your next hurdle is the router is a SWITCH and not a HUB. You will have to hook a standard HUB to the router and hook the EQ and SEQ machines to the hub.

Or you can place the SEQ box with 2 nics and use it as your firewall/NAT router.

[BlueAdept]

I have @home and have no problems.

My set up is like this.

Cablemodem - Linux network card - Other linux network card - hub with win and other computers.

I use dhcp to get my ip for my linux box and use the linux to NAT the rest of my network. Works great.

Also, you shouldnt need to call them up. The mac address is for the modem, not for the rest of the network (you should be able to hook a router up without calling them).

Heh...my friend had connection problems (it was @homes fault) and they asked him to describe his set up. He said he had a modem hooked to a router....well all hell broke loose. They said that that was his problem and that hooking a router up to the cable modem was illegal because it gave him more ip addresses and violated his TOS....He called back told them that he removed the router and was still having problems and then they found that a high pass filter had been added onto his line by accident.

Also dont tell them you are running linux. Every time I have a problem, they try to blame it on that (I accidentally told them I ran it, they made a note on my account. Now every time I call up, they blame that).

[fryfrog]

there ARE some cable isps that BIND the cable modem to the mac address of the first network card that was hooked to it. i KNOW that at&t/roadrunner does this, as i have them. you WILL either have to ONLY ever hook up your router (ie, you just got new serverice and you start out hooking up your routers network card to the cable mode... even if its in a windows box /wink) OR you have to call them and a.) tell them your new mac address or b.) ask them to reset the modem.

and do as blue suggests. ALWAYS pretend you are using windows and that there is NO router. most of the tech support people blindly follow a trouble shooting guide made for dumbasses (you know, the people who won't ever make it to THIS forum). if they ask you to "release and rewnew" your ip with "winipcfg" or "ipconfig", just click the mouse and press the keys a little while then tell them, "okay, did that and it <did>/<didn't> help"

unfortunatly, you really have to craft how you tell them some of these things to get where you want to go... routers and linux are the devil to them.

[fyodorst]

I can attest to what fry is saying. I did tech support for some of these people awhile back. You can basically get them to do anything you want if you either craft what you say correctly OR get someone like me on the phone who will figure you out and say "so you wanna do X? sure, no problem, one sec."

[Art]

I have the same setup as Blue. Some cable ISP's bind it to your original MAC that you used when first signing up the service, others use your HOST name. You know, that b234235-w thing. Make sure you have your Linux box setup with that, if it still doesnt work, call em and tell them you bought a new NIC and give em the new MAC addy. Should work fine. Goodluck!

[casey]

there ARE some cable isps that BIND the cable modem to the mac address of the first network card that was hooked to it. i KNOW that at&t/roadrunner does this, as i have them.

roadrunner austin and san antonio do not exhibit this behavior (i've used the old old motorolla modems and the newer toshiba modems).


Also dont tell them you are running linux.

I've also not experienced this, having had to call thier techs (not enough ip's delegated to the modem) and when the tech came for an install at my new apt (modem was hooked to a machine with no video, only 2 nic's and a wyse 50 serial terminal displaying a login prompt). You just have to know how to translate the steps thier scripted phone instructions tell them.

ie reboot == ifdown eth1; ifup eth1 :)


if they ask you to "release and rewnew" your ip with "winipcfg" or "ipconfig", just click the mouse and press the keys a little while then tell them, "okay, did that and it <did>/<didn't> help"

thats part of the problem why they might not like to support linux users, they ask for a release/renew and instead you do nothing. doing



ifdown eth1
rm /var/dhcp/dhclient.leases (or the appropriate lease file for your daemon)
ifup eth1


would have accomplished what the tech had wanted, and without incident. They may not know how to instruct you to release/renew, but thats its your responsibility to know for using an unsupported OS.


anyway, my experience with rr austin has been pleasant, they dont have a problem with linux or NAT afaik (tech who did the install knew what was up when i pluggedthe modem into the box i did, and had 6 others in the same room :)

[high_jeeves]

Same experience here as casey.. I use Austin.RR, and as long as you lie to them about what you are running, there support is quite good.. (Although, the last guy I talked to didnt know what I meant when I told him a router on his network was down...)

--Jeeves

[S_B_R]

I used to have COX@Home service. and As I recall their DHCP server doesn't like the RedHat DHCP client, which I think is/was called "pump" and you have set it up to use "dhcpcd" in your ifup script...

It's been a couple years and a couple versions of RedHat since I've used COX@Home. So I might have those 2 backwards dhcp clients backwards.

I've found that Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/) is very helpful for these types of issues.

Good Luck :D

[casey]

pump sucks :)

i can also confirm that it does not work with RR + a 2.4 kernel. i use dhclient, which supercedes dhcpcd.

thats the dhcp-client package for the enlightened out there (debian > *)

[fryfrog]

i'm sorry, maybe i should have been more specific... when I call tech support, i have already tried everything i can think of on my end. releasing and renewing ips (yes, i know how to do that it isn't exactly hard), rebooting my machine and very often even resorting to hooking up a windows machine to the cable modem to verify that it IS my cable modem.

i'm sure all tech support people are not identical, but when i get one on the phone they ALWAYS want to follow the same scripted procedure...

1.) release / renew (i can do this in both windows in linux, hurray for me... but i've already done this)
2.) reboot the cable modem (thats the first thing i EVER do) and check the lights...
3.) reboot the computer hooked up to it...
4.) verify your network settings (gee, it was working before then it suddently stopped working... i play with my network settings just for fun).

these steps work great, but most of us (not all of us) know enough to try these types of things before we even call tech support. even if you open up with something that should help them, they still want to follow it... ie: "hey, my cable modem is up, has link lights and so is my computer. i can ping my gateway and ips that should be local to me but NOTHING on the internet"... "okay, lets verify your network settings and reboot and reboot the cable modem" ... "actually, i already did all that" ... "oh, well how about we reboot your cable modem... computer and check network settings" ... "okay, fine... lets do that"

i HAVE gotten smart techs, but they tend to be on the chat based tech support (which don't work so well when you are getting like 80% packet loss). the guys that come out to your house tend to be good too, when at&t came out i just asked for the modem and he said sure, lemme activate it and we'll be good. i showed him my setup and he didn't care.

course, i don't know what else to really expect out of tech support, i have to deal with customers all the time and i hate the ones like me... especially if they think they know more and really don't :)

[kongfu]

Some @home networks and Cox Cable systems use the computers hostname and mac address to assign it an active ip. There are two ways to set this information in Redhat Linux.

[kongfu]

Some @home networks and Cox Cable systems use the computers hostname and mac address to assign it an active ip. There are two ways to set this information in Redhat Linux.

1. During Redhat install take off DHCP. This will allow you to put the hosthame i.e. cx211954-b in the hostname field. Then reenable DHCP before continuing. The hostname will still remain

2. Edit the file -
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
change the DHCP_HOSTNAME i.e.
DHCP_HOSTNAME=cx211854-b

Save and reboot, should work like a charm.

[Cryonic]

Unlike windows you don't have to reboot to make use changes made to the config files, just restart the interface:

ifdown eth0

make changes

ifup eth0

[Dolo001]

Damn just spent my new video card money on a linksys router think this will fit in with my setup - cable modem-router-hub-winxp
-linux

[kongfu]

aye, i have mine set up as

Cable Modem

Smart Hub

Dumb Hub to Smart Hub // XP machine to smart hub

XP maching and linux maching to dumb hub

I have 3 pcs and two hubs total.

[vmlinuz]

Should have saved that money for video card and just had your linux machine be a gateway, for only the price of another NIC for you Linux machine. Unless you're like me and you love to configure routers.

So your topology would go like:

CableModem--Linux--Windows

(note that linux to windows is connected with a crossover cable, wherein pin 1&2 cross to pin 3&6 respectively)

Your hubs and switches get a much deserved vacation.




Also... Linux is booted already.

[nerfherder]

Rather than calling your ISP and possibly clueing them in on the fact you have multiple computers possibly in violation of your service agreement...

Most of these internet "routers" (linksys, 3com, etc) can masquerade as any MAC address they choose. This is usually on the "advanced setup" configuration page.

This does not interfere in any way with NAT even if the computer posessing that MAC is still hooked up (inside the NAT).

[BlueAdept]

why are you bumping a thread that is almost 1 year old? @home doesnt even exist any more.

[nerfherder]

Didn't look at the date. <grin>

The issue still applies to present day. I know for a fact that some ATT Broadband vendors (Media One) Still bind the MAC to the modem and trying to get them to change the registered MAC is like pulling teeth.