Whirlpool

Before i get into my situation, i'd just like to point out that i know there are a lot of pppoe/PPPoA threads on this forum, and i have already searched them looking for a solution to my problem.

Basically, i have windows workstations and a linux gateway which is connected to a DLink dsl-300+. Currently the modem is in bridged mode, and linux handles the connection using rp-pppoe. I would like to start using PPPoA, however i cannot find a client for linux.

I know that the dsl-300+ does have its own login client, however i have console only access to this gateway, which makes it difficult to configure using the web-based client because of the javascript used, and i cannot plug into another machine to configure because of the MAC address security.

Anybody have any ideas?

Um, what MAC address security?

Do yourself a favour and shout yourself a Billion 5100, and all the pain goes away. I have given up on the DSL-30x modems.

ISDN2 writes...

Um, what MAC address security?

It uses MAC address security to protect usernames/passwords/settings. its more of a hinderance than a help. It means if i change NIC's then it forces to re-enter all my details. I'm considering hooking it up via console to manually put in the details.

I use a Windows box on the lan and just connect to 192.168.0.1 - the linux router is configured to not do any NAT for that address - it just forwards it to the 300+. Apparently since the traffic comes from the appropriate MAC address, the 300+ seems to accept it - and sends replies back to the right IP, even though it is not one that it has allocated by dhcp.

By the way, I think there is no PPPoA client because is is not possible to run PPPoA over ethernet - or at least it is pointless.

I asked the same question a while ago. Because you connect to the modem via ethernet that requires PPPoE. PPPoA can only be done at the modem end. You will find clients therefore only in the modem/routers that directly connect to the internet. The way out of the problem is use half-bridge mode which means the modem handles authentication but passes the ip to the gateway. I have seen comments that suggest this might not be 100% the case but I have used a modem in half-bridge after some fiddling and it works great. See the thread forum-replies.cfm?t=204778 for the low end billion, netcomm and web-excel.

Edit Cameron beat me to the punch. PPPoA over ethernet is not possible.

I don't know if this is possible with your particular modem. But with the Alcatel Speedtouch Home/Pro you can setup a connection using PPtPoATM. Bascily the linux machine connects though the modem with a pptp tunnel, and the modem connects with PPPoA, it works well. You can do it using pptpclient in Linux.

check out section 21.6.3 here, should be the same in linux:
www.freebsd.org/doc/en_U...dbook/pppoa.html

look here for howto configure the speedtouch:
www.ozcableguy.com/alcatel.html#atm

xterm writes...

Bascily the linux machine connects though the modem with a pptp tunnel

sounds rather messy. And seems to be over a usb link.

Using the dsl300+ with its inbuilt PPPoA client is painless. The Linux gateway just runs a dhcp client on the ethernet port. I've been running one this way for at least 18 months.

Oh, and another way to access the config pages of the dsl300+ while it is still plugged into the gateway is to set up port forwarding through an ssh tunnel.

Cameron writes...

set up port forwarding through an ssh tunnel.

unfortunately my linux skills havent progressed that far, could you point me in the right direction for setting this up please, sounds pretty cool.

castrik writes...

could you point me in the right direction for setting this up please, sounds pretty cool.

For configuring from a LAN, ssh tunnelling is more work to set up than configuring your routing. Have you tried it with your existing setup? - it might connect immediately.

Setting up ssh is moderately involved, and there is plenty of well-written stuff in google-land. For a windows client, get Putty:
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty

basically, run the ssh server on your gateway, and the client on your..wherever.

First get the ssh connection working. Then try to get tunnelling working.
Basically the ssh client listens on a local port, say 10080. You configure the ssh connection so that any packets sent there are encrypted, sent to the server, then decrypted and sent on somewhere else, such as your modem. You point your web browser at localhost:10080, the packets get tunnelled to the server where they are readdressed (as happens with port forwarding/D-NAT) and sent from the gateway to 192.168.0.1:80.
And responses cover the reverse path.

This is also useful for web-based configuration on the gateway - avoids sending passwords over the LAN and also means the web interface need not even be visible on the lan.

i recently switched from pppoe to pptp under linux, i thought i would be hard to setup but its was suprisingly easy with pptpclient, and it works flawlessly. get better downloads speeds and lower pings. wish i knew bout it earlier. tried half-bridge mode too but found the way it worked with client to be messy and more like a hack..