DSL

[beforewisdom]

Hi;

I am running knoppix at home ( I forget which version ) with the kde 3.3.1

At the end of the month I am getting DSL.

I have always been on dialup at home and too busy to read up on DSL for the fun of it.

Is there a guide some place that will introduce me to what I need to know about DSL and how to use the knoppix/kde combination to set it up?

Thanks in advance

Steve

[Harry Kuhman]

....Is there a guide some place that will introduce me to what I need to know about DSL and how to use the knoppix/kde combination to set it up?....
DSL is actually going to be much easier for you to set up and work with than dial-up. Exactly what you need to set up (such as PPPoE or PPPoA) depends on what country you are in and your ISP. One simple piece of advice I can give you. If the DSL modem that your ISP provides does not include a built-in router (many do now), get an inexpensive DSL/cable router to server as a harware firewall and DHCP server. If you do this you should not have to configure anything at all in Knoppix, it should just boot and you will be connected to the network and the Internet as soon as you boot. This is particularly important if you plan on still using Windows. A software firewall is not enough protection for Windows, and you'll be amazed how fast the hackers find you on a high speed connection. (There are common complaints that a fresh install is taken over multiple times in under 4 minutes, far less time than it takes to download the "security updates" after a fresh reinstall).

And do not let your ISP provide you with a USB network interface. Insist on an ethernet based interface.

[Harry Kuhman]

Why are you asking this question in the hdd install forum rather than the Networking forum?

[beforewisdom]

Why are you asking this question in the hdd install forum rather than the Networking forum?

Feel free to move the thread. I didn't notice the networking forum.

Thanks for the information

Steve

[beforewisdom]

DSL is actually going to be much easier for you to set up and work with than dial-up. Exactly what you need to set up (such as PPPoE or PPPoA) depends on what country you are in and your ISP.


Okay. I am in the USA, using knoppix 3.6 and the kde 3.3.1. I did an "apt-get -t unstable install pppoe"

I couldn't run it as root from a terminal. I had to log into my kde desktop for root. Will I need to do that to conncent to DSL or just to run pppoeconf?





One simple piece of advice I can give you. If the DSL modem that your ISP provides does not include a built-in router (many do now), get an inexpensive DSL/cable router to server as a harware firewall and DHCP server. If you do this you should not have to configure anything at all in Knoppix, it should just boot and you will be connected to the network and the Internet as soon as you boot.


I am saving this valuable piece of information into a text file. Thanks!

If my ISP does provide a modem with a built in router does that mean it will also have a firewall?

I am new to all of this. I am particularly worried about the firewall as I heard DSL opens up your machine to continuous attacks.




This is particularly important if you plan on still using Windows.


I haven't used windows at home for over 4 years :)



And do not let your ISP provide you with a USB network interface. Insist on an ethernet based interface.

Another piece of information I am saving to a text file. I am going to ask the ISP I am considering.

Is there anything else I need to know about DSL as a total newbie to it?

Steve

[Harry Kuhman]

Okay. I am in the USA, using knoppix 3.6 and the kde 3.3.1. I did an "apt-get -t unstable install pppoe"
I'm not sure why you would have to do this, AFAIK Knoppix has always included PPPoE already. But I never use it; I have DSL but always use a router.

As to your other questions, yes, if the DSL modem includes a built-in router then, as long as you use it, you would have a hardware firewall. I say "as long as you use it" because most such built-in routers can be disabled and then the modem only acts as a modem. This can be handy if you want to run a better external router (don't stack them, which is to say don't plug one router into another). Of course, not all firewalls are the same. Some do nice tricks like Stateful Packet Inspection, others just forward anything they get. Some have better forwarding rules than others. But all home DSL/cable routers do NAT (Network Address Translation). They let the router get the assigned DSL IP address and assign one or more computers their own private IP addresses that can not be sent over the Internet (usually in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range). When the computer accesses the Internet it sends it's packets to the router. The router builds packets with the actual IP address and sends them on to the Internet. It notes the return port that it used to send the packets and when a reply to that port is received it rebuilds the incoming packet and sends it along to the proper computer. Unless you have ports open or forwarded to a particular machine, unexpected and unwanted traffic gets stopped at the router.

I can't think of anyting else you'll need to know, but then I may forgetting things. Just avoid the USB interfaces (they frequentlly only work with Windows). Your ISP might supply you a NIC with your modem (I know several that did, icluding my own), but you might have to get one (and an Ethernet cable) if you don't already have an Ethernet port on your computer and your ISP does not supply one. Knoppix, particularly when run from CD, should be pretty safe even without a router but I just refuse to run without one (even have a back-up router in my notebook travel case). Given the low cost these things have drpped to (often $10 or less after rebate), it just makes sense. Oh, if you do have to buy one, avoid the Belkin router (some of their models are the only brand that I have found that doesn't DHCP handshake properly with Knoppix). And there is a lame Linksys model that only has one port on it, which I would avoid too.

Clearly there is a lot more that could be said about routers. But it's likely best to wait to see what you get from your ISP before going into too much detail. Ask if there are things that you want to know.

[tdjokic]

I am on the ADSL in Beograd, fomer Yugoslavija. I have Ethernet modem, unfortunatelly without router, DSL-300T. My provider told me to setup my modem as a bridge. User name is [my_user_name]@[ISP_domen_name] and I put it in pppoe. I must work without DHCP and my network card has only hardware adrress:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:8D:66:BA:EE
inet6 addr: fe80::250:8dff:fe66:baee/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3942 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4065 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3164451 (3.0 MiB) TX bytes:582204 (568.5 KiB)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x4000

I am using Knoppix 3.8.1 and ADSL start automatically at boot.

[Harry Kuhman]

I am on the ADSL in Beograd, fomer Yugoslavija. .....I must work without DHCP and my network card has only hardware adrress.....I am using Knoppix 3.8.1 and ADSL start automatically at boot.
That's interesting. I'm not sure if you are asking any question, you do not seem to be.

I don't know what you say you have only hardware addresses (which I take to mean the MAC address). Your computer should also have an IP address, but since you are not going through a router and firewall it should be a routable Internate IP address. You would only have one IP address so can only run one computer on your "network" (or, if you play some games only one computer can have the routable IP address and direct access o the Internet at any time). You could, of course, use a Linux box as a router (after all, some of the commercial home DSL/cable routers are running Linux). However, even though my fist router cost me over $100 US, it just made sense for me to use a stand-alone low power device. Now that the price has dropped the logic only makes more sense. I don't know if you can get as good of deals in Beograd as we can (although I would expect so, it's a world market and these routers we get certainly are not made in the U.S.), but I would urge you to keep watch for a router deal, particularly if you also run Windows.

I've read up a little on your modem. From what I read in some parts of the world it includes a simple 1 port NAT router built in, but for the European market it does not. It does seem to have an option that lets it run the PPPoE client, which should let you avoid needing to run it on your computer. Not sure why your ISP told you to run it in bridge mode (which avoids this). I expect that I would run it in bridge mode when using it with a router (you want the router to do the PPPoE login in that case) but I would play with it and see if I couldn't get it to use it's PPPoE client to log me in if I was working without a router. There may be some PPPoE issue that has caused your ISP to tell you to use bridge mode, but it would be worth looking at. Have you tried using the built-in PPPoE client?

[tdjokic]

I put this facts here only for beforewisdom to see my situation as such. I don't know much about this. I did as ISP told me, if I change anything, conection don't work.
Have you tried using the built-in PPPoE client? No, I don't know nothing about it. Maybe you can see more about my conection from my ppp:

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:62.108.117.138 P-t-P:217.26.64.4 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1400 Metric:1
RX packets:1962 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1873 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:2052858 (1.9 MiB) TX bytes:212061 (207.0 KiB)