Cable-Modem-mini-HOWTO Vladimir Vuksan, vuksan@veus.hr v4.0, 11 February 1999 This document attempts to answer basic questions on how to connect your Linux box to cable modem or cable Internet provider. ______________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1 New Versions of this Document 1.2 Feedback 1.3 Contributors 1.4 Standard Disclaimer 1.5 Copyright Information 2. Setting up your Ethernet Card 3. Regular Cable Modem ISPs 3.1 MediaOne Express 3.2 @Home 3.3 RoadRunner 3.4 Rogers Wave 3.5 Sunflower Cablevision 3.6 Jones Intercable 3.7 GTE Worldwind 3.8 SpeedChoice, Phoenix, Arizona 3.9 Cedar Falls Cybernet, Iowa 3.10 Telstra Bigpond Cable, Australia 3.11 Fibertel, Buenos Aires, Argentina 3.12 Videotron, Canada 3.13 Telekabel (Teleweb), Austria 3.14 Tebecai, Netherlands 3.15 A2000, Netherlands 3.16 Shaw Cable, Canada 3.17 Cogeco Cable, Canada 3.18 Optimum Online, New York and Connecticut 3.19 Singapore Cable Vision, Singapore 3.20 Cable Wanadoo, France 3.21 Prime Cable Expressnet, Las Vegas, NV 3.22 TVD, Belgium 4. Hybrid Cable modem ISPs 4.1 Adelphia Powerlink 4.2 LinkExpress, Brasil 4.3 ExpressNet, Maryland ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction The main goal of this document is to get your system running with your cable modem, and cable internet provider. Unfortunately, many ISPs that provide cable modem services, give you Windows and Macintosh software only. This document attempts to explain how to setup some cable modems and internet providers in Linux, the tricks to get them working correctly, and the traps not to fall down. It is hoped that this document will assist you, however we make no claims for the validity of the information contained within. 1.1. New Versions of this Document New versions of this document will be periodically posted to comp.os.linux.answers. They will also be added to the various anonymous FTP sites who archive such information, including: In addition, you should generally be able to find this document on the Linux Documentation Project page via: 1.2. Feedback Feedback is most certaintly welcome for this document. Without your submissions and input, this document wouldn't exist. So, please post your additions, comments and criticisms to vuksan@veus.hr. 1.3. Contributors The following people have contributed to this mini-HOWTO. · Dan Sullivan, dsulli@home.com · Andrew Novick · Michael Strates 1.4. Standard Disclaimer No liability for the contents of this documents can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and other content at your own risk. As this is a new edition of this document, there may be errors and inaccuracies, that may of course be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, and although this is highly unlikely, I don't take any responsibility for that. Also bear in mind that this is NOT official information. Obtaining official information is usually an impossibility with many ISPs. Much content in this document are assumptions, which appear to work for people. Use the information at your own risk. 1.5. Copyright Information This document is copyrighted (c)1998 Vladimir Vuksan and distributed under the following terms: · Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions. · All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator at the address given below. · If you have questions, please contact, the Linux HOWTO coordinator, at linux-howto@sunsite.unc.edu 2. Setting up your Ethernet Card All of the setups below use ethernet cards (network cards) to connect you somehow to the Internet. That is why first we need to check if your ethernet card is working and most importantly can be used (read is supported) in Linux. There is a comprehensive Ethernet HOWTO at if you would like to read it otherwise try this. Boot into Linux, During boot up a message like this should appear... eth0: 3c509 at 0x300 tag 1, 10baseT port, address 00 20 af ee 01 23, IRQ 10. 3c509.c:1.07 6/15/95 becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov If you missed it type dmesg. If you see a message like that you are set and you can go to the next section. If you can't see a message like this there are two possible explanations, your ethernet card is PNP (plug-n-play) and you need to use tools such as isapnptools to get it recognized (I am not quite sure on this because I don't have a single PNP card so correct me if I am wrong). The other explanation is that you need to set up your card. Most cards today come with DOS programs that are used to setup your card. For example to get my 3COM 3c509 to work all I needed to do is boot into DOS and use a utility to configure my card. There is usually a Auto Configure option. If that does not solve your problem try changing the IRQ for the card using the same utility. I find that usually IRQs 10,11 and 12 work well. If none of this solves your problem please read the Ethernet HOWTO referenced above or post to a newsgroup such as comp.os.linux.setup or comp.os.linux.networking. 3. Regular Cable Modem ISPs If you think you have the card recognized you have to now look at the entry for your ISP. I have sorted the information according to a provider because setups are mostly ISP specific. 3.1. MediaOne Express MediaOne Express is a Internet cable service provided by MediaOne. The hardware setup consists of a cable modem produced by LanCity or General Instruments which plugs into an ethernet card using a 10BaseT (UTP-45) cable. Assignment of IP addresses and other networking information is done using DHCP which stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. The only thing you need to do is read the DHCP mini-HOWTO and configure your system appropriately. There is no other necessary configuration. DHCP mini-HOWTO can be found at Information about MediaOne Service can be found at . 3.2. @Home @Home uses a similar setup to ``MediaOne''. However, there are a few fundamental differences, outlined by contributors. Since @Home spans different geographic locations you might get assigned different kind of equipment and have slightly different kind of setups. Before you try anything, go to control panel, network, and properties for your network card. Write down all of the information. You will need it later. TCI, the company that runs @Home issues a Etherlink III 3c509b NIC for all of their customers. What TCI does not tell you is that when they install your ethernet card, it is in PnP mode. Now in Slakware, if you uncomment the proper line for this card, everything will appear to be working fine. There will be no system problems, but the 'PC' light on your CyberSURFR modem will never turn on. If you are using Slakware, and are having this problem, reboot in DOS and skip the next paragraph. In RedHat5, your system will have some trouble autodetecting the card. If you try to pass the paramaters manually, the system will hang. This should be obvious that your card is not setup properly. Before wasting anymore time, reboot in DOS (This is a must because as of 12/25/97, there is no utility written for Linux to turn off PnP and turn on ISA.) TCI does not give out a utility disk for your ethernet card, so you must download the utility from one of 3Com's sites. Here is a link to 3COM's page for driver download. Once you have downloaded your driver files you will need to run them and disable the PNP mode of your network card. What you've now done will make your ethernet card 'broken' in Windows 95. You'll need to go to Control Panel, Network, and remove the network card and the adapter. Reboot your computer, and again go back to control panel. Go to add/remove new hardware, and have it autodetect. It will automatically setup the correct i/o address for you. You will most likely need to reboot again. Now you should be in Windows 95, with the 'PC' light on your cable modem on. You will also notice that none of your internet applications seem to work, you can't ping, and you can't resolve DNS. You now must go back to control panels, network, and click on properties for your network card (not the adapter). Re-enter all the data you wrote down, and reboot. With a little luck, your ethernet card should be working in Windows 95, and ready to rock in Linux. If you live Hampton Roads, VA you should read a little note from Mark Solomon With the @home service in Hampton Roads, VA, it is absolutly neccessary to run dhcpcd-0.70 (or higher) that supports the "-h" option to specify the hostname of your computer. Without this switch the @home dhcpcd server will not assign addresses. More information on setting up dhcpcd-0.70 and @Home service with Intel Ether Express cards can be found at Notes for Baltimore, MD and Colleyville,TX: In Baltimore subscribers are issued Intel Ether Express Pro 10 nics and a static IP number. Information about @Home Service can be found at . 3.3. RoadRunner RoadRunner is an Internet cable service provided by Excalibur Group (Time Warner). The hardware setup consists of a cable modem produced by Motorola and Toshiba which plugs into an ethernet card using a 10BaseT (UTP-45) cable. From what I can gather RR uses DHCP for IP assignment. In order to set up Linux to use DHCP you need to read the DHCP mini-HOWTO and configure your system appropriately. DHCP mini- HOWTO can be found at If this doesn't work out for you you should check out for Akron, Ohio and for San Diego, California. It might help solve your problem. Another good site is . Information about RoadRunner Service can be found at . 3.4. Rogers Wave The hardware setup consists of a cable modem produced by LanCity which plugs into an ethernet card using a 10BaseT (UTP-45) cable. When the cable modem is installed by Rogers Wave technicians you are assigned a static IP address. They should also provide you with information on your subnet mask, router (gateway) numbers and DNS numbers. For additional info please visit . Other information about Rogers Wave Service can be found at . 3.5. Sunflower Cablevision This information is provided by Andrew Novick: "I recently saw your cable modem howto and I have an addition. Sunflower Cable is a company stricly in Lawrence KS, however we have a rather large Linux community because of the University of Kansas. On our local LUG mailing list, we are starting to get more and more questions on how to configure their linux machine for the cable modem. It is just regular static addressing, and the modem is made by Zenith." To configure your Linux box make sure you get all the pertinent information from the Cablevision tech support or use these. · IP address: Assigned by SunFlower Cablevision · Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 · Gateway (router) address: 24.124.11.254 · Hostname: Assigned by SunFlower Cablevision · Domain name: lawrence.ks.us · Primary DNS server (nameserver): 24.124.0.1 · Secondary DNS server (nameserver): 24.124.0.6 Have all those numbers written down before you proceed. To register, visit To register in the lawrence.ks.us domain contact Stephen Spencer at gladiatr@artorius.sunflower.com Under RedHat use Control Panel and Network Configuration to put in these numbers. Just say Add Interface, Device type=Ethernet, Device name=eth0 (this is zero not O in eth0) then fill out all the fields. Then click activate. In Slackware type netconfig. When you are finished reboot and you should be up and running. If this doesn't work make sure you do network card troubleshooting from the beginning of this document. 3.6. Jones Intercable This information is provided by Bob Kimble: Jones Internet Cable supplies a Hybrid cable modem that connects to your machine / network via 10BaseT ethernet. They provide you with a static IP address for your machine, and another static IP address for the modem. The modem acts as a gateway to their network. Your IP address and the modem IP address are on the same network and have the same network mask (in my case 255.255.255.0 -- 24 bits). They also provide two DNS IP addresses which you enter into your configuration. I just entered the numbers when I installed Red Hat Linux 5 and it worked like a champ from the beginning. Since then I have configured my Linux machine to enable IP masquerading and domain name services, and it now acts as a router for my entire private network. My other machines are connected via a private network using the addresses 192.168.0.x. They are running Windows 95, Windows NT (Intel and Alpha) and OS/2. My Linux machine has two IP addresses -- the one from the cable company and one from the 192.168.0.x private network. Everything works like a champ. All six machines can browse the web simultaneously. My kids are even able to connect to their favorite game site, "The Realm" from Sierra. 3.7. GTE Worldwind This information is provided by Mike Hughes: The information you provided for Rogers Wave works for GTE WorldWind cable modem services also. However, GTE's service is EXTREMELY slow, barely faster than ISDN. more information at 3.8. SpeedChoice, Phoenix, Arizona According to Micah peenchee@asu.edu: Just thought I'd let you know that in my area (Phoenix, AZ, usa) there is a company called speedchoice that provides cable modem service. The service uses a hybrid cable modem and the set up is almost identical to that of Jones intercable described in the howto. See ``Jones Cable''. For any other issues mail Micah. 3.9. Cedar Falls Cybernet, Iowa This information is provided thanks to Joe Breu breu@cfu.net We are an ISP in Cedar Falls, Iowa that uses the Zenith HomeWorks Universal over our own Hybrid Fiber/Coax system. Our system uses no proprietary connection software and is straight TCP/IP connections. We do use DHCP, but will offer static IP addresses to customers requesting them because they cannot use DHCP. 3.10. Telstra Bigpond Cable, Australia This information is provided by Geoff Conway gconway@vic.bigpond.net.au Disclaimer: The information contained herein is in no way the responsibility of Big Pond Cable, Telstra Multimedia, Telstra, IBM Global Services Australia or any related company. Any loss or consequential damage associated with the attempted installation of the Big Pond Cable Linux software is the PERSONAL responsibility of whomsoever follows these instructions. Big Pond Cable does not currently support Linux - so do not report faults to them regarding any aspect of the Linux installation and/or operation. Big Pond Cable Linux Installation Notes. V 1.1 (12/03/98) Change Note 1.1 12/3/98 - Corrected spelling of dhcpcd & rrdhcpcd Linux is not officially supported by Big Pond Cable. However, the TMM cable infrastructure does allow Linux to be used - with the appropriate login client. The following installation notes should allow you to install the Linux software without too many difficulties. The full client distribution of rrclientd was obtained from: I am running RedHat version 5 of Linux - but the documentation indicates that it will work with other releases. Note that there is also more information in the rrclientd release than is documented here. Procedure: · Copy the distribution file rrclientd-1.3.tar.gz to your Linux PC. · Login as root for all of the following :- · Expand the distribution (with gunzip) & then untar it. · In directory rrclientd-1.3/bin you will find all the executables that you need: fetchmail (not used) kdestroy kinit rdate rrclientd rrdhcpcd rrpasswd · Rename /sbin/dhcpcd to /sbin/dhcpcd.orig. Copy & rename rrdhcpcd to /sbin/dhcpcd · Copy kdestroy,kinit,rdate,rrclientd,rrdhcpd,rrpasswd to /usr/local/bin · Set up your ethernet card to use dhcp & restart the system. If the dhcp configuration is ok - an IP address will be assigned - with the details being places in /etc/dhcpc/hostinfo-eth0 & /etc/dhcpc/resolv.conf You may see a startup warning about not finding dhcp.conf - this doesn't seem to matter. ** At this point you should be able to ping proxy-server successfully. (If you can't then you won't be able to login later) · Copy the krb5.ini file (from your Win95 \netmanag directory) to /etc/krb5.conf You will need to make the following changes (adding 2 new sections) The example shown is for the Melbourne krb5.ini file - Sydney users will need to substitute appropriately. This is also documented in the distribution's examples/ sub- directories. ___________________________________________________________________ [libdefaults] ticket_lifetime = 600 default_realm = c3.telstra-mm.net.au ** new *1 kdc_req_checksum_type = 2 ap_req_checksum_type = 2 safe_req_checksum_type = 3 ccache_type = 2 ** end of new *1 [realms] c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = dce-server admin_server = dce-server default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh1.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh1.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh1.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh2.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh2.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh2.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh3.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh3.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh3.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh4.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh4.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh4.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } wfh5.c3.telstra-mm.net.au = { kdc = wfh5.c3.telstra-mm.net.au admin_server = wfh5.c3.telstra-mm.net.au default_domain = c3.telstra-mm.net.au } ** new *2 [domain_realm] .c3.telstra-mm.net.au = c3.telstra-mm.net.au ** end *2 ___________________________________________________________________ · Save your existing services file /etc/services to /etc/services.orig Copy the services file from examples/Nassau/services to /etc/services · Create a new file /etc/rrpasswd - with the contents being your current BPC password · Change the PATH environment variable as follows PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin ; export PATH (This is most likely not necessary) · Login to BPC as follows rrclientd -u /etc/rrpasswd dce-server so if you're username jsmith rrclientd -u jsmith /etc/rrpasswd dce-server If this is successful you'll see a message in /var/log/messages indicating it was ok. tail /var/log/messages will display the end of the file. · Logout of BPC by entering rrclientd -k · To make this automatic - you'll need to set the PATH & invoke rrclientd each time the system boots. · The rrpasswd command has NOT been tried. · That's it - setup your Linux Netscape proxies & go for it !! · According to the documentation the client will logout & then login automatically at 3am. This has not been checked. Problems If you don't setup the PATH properly - then the login will fail with GSS_API complaints about non-supported checksum type. If you don't make the needed changes to krb5.conf you'll also get a similar error. If you are using your PC to dual/triple boot between W95/NT/Linux - the PC's CMOS clock will be altered by Linux - giving continual Kerberos errors if you try & login using NT. You need to login using Win95 first (which will fix the CMOS clock settings), then you can get in via NT. Make sure you setup you PC time/timezone correctly in Linux. Note also that the /var/log/messages timestamps are a bit strange :) (possibly referenced to GMT) 3.11. Fibertel, Buenos Aires, Argentina This information is provided by Pablo Godel My name is Pablo Godel and want report that I'm using the cable service of Fibertel in Buenos Aires, Argentina and it works perfectly with Linux. They gave me a static IP. The brand of the cablemodem is COM21 and the model is ComPort. I connect it to the nic properly, configured in Linux and it worked perfectly. More information about Fibertel can be found at 3.12. Videotron, Canada I don't have much information about Videotron except the fact that they use DHCP for the assignment of IP addresses and other networking information. Just read the DHCP mini-HOWTO (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html) and configure your system appropriately. There is no other necessary configuration. Additional information from Mihai Petre (mihaip@videotron.ca): Yes they are using DHCP for the tcp settings. They have also included dhcpcd on their ftp server at (). Of course that the tech. support cannot help u for the linux related stuff. They don't allow setup of any kind of servers on your machine (on ports 80,21,110,25) so the only thing is to use some "exotics" ports. Information about Videotron can be found at 3.13. Telekabel (Teleweb), Austria According to Andreas Kostyrka: · You may want to mention, that the Austrian Telekabel (Teleweb) ISP works with Linux. It seems quite similiar like MediaOne Express (3c509+dhcp, etc.) · Second there are 3COM configuration utilities for Linux (But don't fool around with them on a busy system, 3c509 may lock the bus if touched the wrong way :( ): Information about Telekabel can be found at 3.14. Tebecai, Netherlands According to Frodo Looijaard: Tebecai is yet another provider which uses a LANcity cable modem connected to a 10BaseT ethernet card. DHCP is used for configuration (see the DHCP mini-HOWTO at http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html). A step-by-step guide to install the cable modem under Linux can be found at (in dutch), but it is really very straightforward. You must only remember that your IP-address is not visible from the Internet (it is on the private 10.x.y.z subnet), so you can not setup a publicly available server. Information about Tebecai can be found at (in dutch only). 3.15. A2000, Netherlands This information is provided by Johan List J.A.List@speed.A2000.nl: Basically the way to go is the same as with Tebecai. A2000 provides cable internet access by means of a LANCity cable modem, connected to an 10BaseT ethernet card. This also works well for the "Vortex/Boomerang" cards by 3COM (I've got a 3COM Boomerang Fast Etherlink XL 10/100Mb TX Ethernet Adapter), providing you compile the Vortex/Boomerang drivers. (See the Linux Ethernet-HOWTO) Setting up access can be done with DHCP (See the DHCP-Mini-HOWTO). A Dutch guide to setting up Internet access for A2000 is available at . Contrary to Tebecai, your IP-number *is* visible from the Internet, so take your precautions regarding security and safety when setting up a Linux machine using A2000 Internet access!! 3.16. Shaw Cable, Canada According to Peng F. Mok pmok@shaw.wave.ca: I recently signed up for a cable modem service from Shaw Cable here in Canada, which they have christened `Shaw Wave'. They also appear to have another service called `Shaw@Home' which they are using in some locations. Shaw has been upgrading their cable network for about a year and a half now, and now offer cable-modem service to a number of locations across Canada. Information about the `Shaw Wave' service can be found at while information about the `Shaw@Home' service can be found at General information about Shaw Cable can be found at I thought I'd just drop you a line to inform you that your DHCP mini- HOWTO, (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html) was very useful in helping me set up Linux to work with my cable-modem service, and that you might want to add `Shaw Wave' (and perhaps `Shaw@Home') to your Cable-Modem mini-HOWTO as another entry explaining how to set up Linux with the service. I don't have specific information on the `Shaw@Home' service yet, but from conversations I've had with Shaw technical support it seems that `Shaw@Home' is a partnership with ```@Home''' and involves the same features and setup procedure as that already described for ```@Home''' in the Cable-Modem mini-HOWTO document. In both services Shaw Cable techs will come over and bring you two pieces of hardware -- a Motorola CyberSURFR cable-modem and either a 3Com EtherLink III 16-Bit ISA 3C509B-TPO NIC or an EtherLink XL PCI 3C900-TPO NIC. You have your choice of either an ISA or a PCI card depending on your needs, and these models only have the RJ-45 (UTP) connectors. The ISA cards come with PnP-mode enabled by default, so it may be necessary to boot into DOS, disable PnP operation, and configure the card to some base I/O address and IRQ setting which are available. Once this is done Linux should have no problems detecting the NIC at boot-time. I'm not sure about what needs to be done in the case of a PCI card since I don't currently have a PC which supports either PCI or PnP. Note from another user: Shaw now also issues SMC PCI ethernet cards. They give these out without boxes or manuals. I found out that these are the SMC EtherPower PCI RJ45 card (model 8432T). They use the DEC 21041 chip so the tulip ethernet driver is needed for it. If you need to set up your POP3 mailboxes you can do that at following URL: and you can login and setup the POP3 mailboxes that way. Oh, and for the record, Shaw's technical support is horrendous. The best place to go for information is the athome.users-unix newsgroup (which is not even mentioned by any of the documentation) or please consult 3.17. Cogeco Cable, Canada This information is provided thanks to Terry O'Grady togrady@cgocable.net I have a Cable Modem through a company called Cogeco Cable located in various parts of Canada. They are part of the "Wave" system which includes Rogers Cable and Shaw Cable. The technical setup is different for each provider though. They supplied me with a D-Link ethernet card (the version of that has changed since then but I believe are still using D-Link) and a Zenith modem. The Ip setup is easy since they use DHCP so all I did was install the dhcp daemon (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html) and that was that. If you like you can list my e-mail address togrady@cgocable.net for anyone with questions. 3.18. Optimum Online, New York and Connecticut This information is provided by Seth Greenfield (islesfan@nassau.cv.net): Optimum Online uses DHCP, and rrclientd in Linux, by John Clark. Check out for instructions on how to set up your service with Linux. Tell people who had private ips who have public ips now to change their /etc/resolv.conf to look like this... domain nassau.cv.net (or optonline.net depenind on the users mood) nameserver 167.206.112.3 nameserver 167.206.112.4 Other Than that its the same setup procedure note: the rrclientd software will work if you tell it dce-server and you specify the domain as optonline.net 3.19. Singapore Cable Vision, Singapore This information is provided by Jieyao (jieyao@letterbox.com): SCV provides Motorola Cybersurfer modem connected to the network card via UTP cable. The IP setup is easy since they use DHCP so all you need to do is install the dhcp daemon (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html). If you can't make access the first time, turn the modem off then on again. 3.20. Cable Wanadoo, France This information is provided by Jerome SAUTRET (Jerome.Sautret@wanadoo.fr): I just read your Cable Modem HOWTO. I live in France, and I use Cable Wanadoo, the cable service of France Telecom, which is the main telecom operator in France. It is available in a few cities in France at the moment, like Angers and Metz. This service provides a dynamic IP address via DHCP. It uses a COM 21 modem plugged in a 10BaseT Ethernet card. The IP setup is easy just read the DHCP mini HOWTO (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/DHCP.html). 3.21. Prime Cable Expressnet, Las Vegas, NV This information is provided by jedi jedi@penguin.lcvm.com: They use the Com21 which can either be connected directly to your 10baseT input or inserted into the downlink input on your router. Static IPs are available for $10 per month and the usual address assignment is through DHCP ( ) More information can be obtained from 3.22. TVD, Belgium This information is provided by Pierre-Yves Keldermans pykeldermans@usa.net: At home, my cable-TV company is "TVD", it is the first company to offer internet on the cable in Belgium. Hardware : LanCity cable modem & 10-Base-T NIC ( DLink ISA if you buy it from TVD ) Config : DHCP ( ) Prices : · Cheap : for home use, real IP address but dynamic, DHCP expires every 10 min, 1 user only (theorically ... ), no problem with firewall, the web server on my computer is even reachable from outside..., full speed FROM internet, small speed TO internet. · No so cheap : for small office use, same as 1) but not limited to 1 user and more speed TO internet. · Expensive : for WWW servers & ... , Static IP addresses and reserved bandwidth TO internet following price. Speed : >From TVD's mirror site : up to 250Kbytes/sec, very nice ( and YES, they have some Linux mirrors like redhat ... :-) ) >From internet : variable but rather good if the remote server isn't overloaded. For more info : and 4. Hybrid Cable modem ISPs If you think you have the card recognized you have to now look at the entry for your ISP. I have sorted the information according to a provider because setups are mostly ISP specific. This section is for people who are using so-called "hybrid" cable modems. Hybrid modems are those that need two kinds of connections, one to the (TV) cable and one to the phone line. 4.1. Adelphia Powerlink Check out the following URL for directions on how to set up Linux with Powerlink 4.2. LinkExpress, Brasil This information is provided by Rodrigo Severo (rodrigo@who.net): First of all, let me tell you that here we have the MMD Cable Modem from General Instrument. We use SurfBoard 1000 ISA board for download and a regular telephone modem for upload. I would prefer to use an external board like the SurfBoard 1200 which is available only to corporate users, i.e., willing to pay US$ 200,00 instead of the regular US$ 30,00 so I found out this driver for the internal ISA board. I started from the files I downloaded from . Here is the relevant data: ______________________________________________________________________ ISP: LinkExpress DNS: 200.252.88.20 Frequency: 351 MHz Phone number: 321 3300 ______________________________________________________________________ During a download from a local tucows mirror I got 70KB 300KB per second. From distant sites I managed to get 30KB/s a few times. More information about LinkExpress can be found at 4.3. ExpressNet, Maryland I recently accuired an expressnet cable modem for the maryland area. it is a com21 one way modem and I had a hell a time making it work so id like to share my knowledge in your faq maybe? well heres what I learned inorder for the PPP connection to authenticate the user must be running PAP which consists of editing the /etc/ppp/pap-secrets file accordingly ______________________________________________________________________ #/etc/ppp/pap-secrets #this is the PAP secrets file for PPP #the quotes are required on both "username" * "password" ______________________________________________________________________ after that they must create a PPP-on script what ever name it must execute this command ______________________________________________________________________ exec /usr/sbin/pppd debug persist /dev/ttyS1 38400 0.0.0.0:0.0.0.0 connect "chat -v TIMEOUT 3 ABORT 'BUSY' ABORT 'NOANSWER' '' ATH TIMEOUT 30 'OK' ATDTTELEPHONE CONNECT ''" ______________________________________________________________________ this must be done with no carrage returns either next step is to modify the /etc/ppp/ip-up.local file if it does not exist it should be created it should read the following ______________________________________________________________________ #!/bin/bash #/etc/ppp/ip-up.local #this will set up the route to the ppp device as default everytime the modem #authenticates dont include it if you do not want this option route add default ppp0 ______________________________________________________________________ then the user must configure their ethernet card on box I have a 3c905 I configured it the following way ______________________________________________________________________ ifconfig eth0 up ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.1 broadcast 10.0.0.15 netmask 255.255.255.240 ______________________________________________________________________ then I added some more routes to the kernel routing table as follows ______________________________________________________________________ route add -host 10.0.0.1 eth0 route add -net 10.0.0.0 eth0 ______________________________________________________________________ all of these commands can be added into a script file as follows ______________________________________________________________________ #!/bin/bash #This is a script file for establishing the cable modem IF device properties as #well as the route properties ifconfig eth0 up ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.1 broadcast 10.0.0.15 netmask 255.255.255.240 route add -host 10.0.0.1 eth0 route add -net 10.0.0.0 eth0 ______________________________________________________________________ thats all and the cable modem connection is setup fast as hell I might add. Contributers: Chris (chris@wrm.grdn.net) & Mike Milbert (mike@milbert.com)