bugs like 68934 and adsl, generally

[whathappenedtoadduser]

The purpose of this post is to raise awareness of misunderstanding resulting in much wasted time and effort respecting ppoe.
I use bellsouth dsl which is an asynchronous digital service of nominally 1.5 mbps inbound and 256 kbps outbound, my computer being the reference for in and out.
Bellsouth refers to a link and a connection. Both of these terms refer to events on the network side of the Westell 2200 digital device which mediates between the network and my computer. When the link is down, connectivity has been lost between the 2200 and the DSLAM or digital subscriber line multiplexing device; when the connection is down, connectivity has been lost between the 2200 and the information network or ISP. When the connection has been lost, the westell is accessed via browser at address http://192.168.1.254, at which time it presents a webpage which it maintains internally and which hold the username and password for the dsl account. When the submit button on the webpage is moused, connection is re-established. As I have optioned the westell for always on and as the westell then does not monitor whether the ethernet media is connected or not, the connection is up unless the link has been lost and disconnecting the ether to move from computer to computer does not cause the connection to be lost. If the "on demand" option is activated for the ppoe connection between the 2200 and the ISP, it is necessary to connect to http://192.168.1.254 and mouse the submit button after the computer has been powered down.

There is no need for ppoe between the computer and the westell 2200.

If optioned for ppoe (bridged ethernet being the other option choice), the westell 2200 communicates with the information network using ppoe protocol with VPI set to 8 and VCI set to 35. Westell, not the computer, is the essential responsible actor in this connection and protocol.

Using the westell 2200 set for connection always on and dhcp either enabled or disabled, without IF passthrough, with or without static NAT, MS ME on the desktop connects to http://192.168.1.254 via the browser, regardless of these settings on the westell. It properly obtains an IP in the 192.168.1.1-253 range when DHCP is enabled. If the westell is set for static NAT and operating and then DHCP is disabled, and the IP on the desktop is changed to 192.168.1.2 and the computer rebooted, the westell connects to the new IP but does not update the static NAT IP unless it is disabled and then enabled, when it shows the static NAT connection by hostname. In any case, the network card is not turned off and negotiation does not fail.

The TCIP settings in MS ME are Use DHCP for WINS resolution (but WINS resolution is neither enabled or disabled); Gateway 192.168.1.254; enable DNS with DNS servers manually entered; Bindings to CLient for Microsoft windows; Detect connection to network media and either obtain IP address or static address (both work); Allow binding to ATM and set this protocol to be default protocol; (netbios is prechecked and cannot be modified).

There is no ppoe on the computer side of the ADSL service required whatsoever. It could not be set up under windows ME using MS ppoe alone. It is bellsouth's "ppoe helper protocol" which is loaded with its "connection agent" and supplied by broadjump which permits any sort of "ppoe" between the computer and the westell 2200. When it was removed, throughput improved by magnitudes, as might be expected when a boondoggle, undocumented, nonstandard, unnecessary "helper protocol" is eliminated from the stream. Every digital device supplied by bellsouth has as much or more options functionality as the 2200. Other vendors of these devices may interface via the MAC address instead of an IP address, but the essentials are the same (see BSNL DateOne ADSL HOWTO by Giridhar Appaji Nag Y, which is supposed to be in its latest version on the BSNL Date One ADSL HOWTO home page.)

The misunderstanding of ADSL and ppoe can be traced to a white paper given by the president of penguin software. As he never states what westell 2200 options are proper for his implementation, who can know what was in his mind. However, what was not in his mind can be gleaned by anyone who reads to the end of the paper and reflects upon the fact the implementation was designed to be installed so it could listen to a MS client sharing the ethernet pn the computer side of the westell 2200 and guess what protocol to use.

It is quite impossible, except as the hundredth trial and error monkey, to obtain access to an information network from a computer through a mediating digital device without knowing what options to administer on the device for any particular mode administered on the computer. And vice versa, as well. The label ADSL is not enough information for either a developer to know what to code or for a user to know what to administer in the finished product.

I hope this helps. For reasons as yet unknown to me, the live-cd cannot negotiate either a static or a dynamic IP address with the westell 2200 via a DP83815 network card. But I am hopeful a compiled gentoo will succeed, if the TCIP bind to atm is a default.

[amne]

I don't quite understand why you are posting this here into Gentoo forums feedback?
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Dinosaur week! (Ok, this thread is so last week)

[pilla]

edited: moved to IG
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