Request infro from Irish NTL cable users

slaine

Hi folks,

I'm looking for feedback from some users of the NTL cable modem service in Dublin. I'm new to boards.ie and was recommended to post the request for info to this channel.

I've found out that I am one of the lucky few that can avail of the service and I've been trying to gather some technical info about the service.

What I'd like to setup is...
Cable modem plugging into my Pentium 90Mhz box which is running linux and acting as a firewall (currently for dialup) and then masq's the connection to the rest of my HAN (Home Area Network).
I'd like to be able to access my network from outside, i.e. ssh to my home machines from work to transfer files etc.

Now I've managed to gleam some info from tech support, suffice it to say I'm still uncertain about the answers I was given and would like to get feedback from users of the system.

1) Is there much problem with congestion. I'm going to go for the 512k option and wonder how much of that I'll actually get.

2) I know the IP address is dynamic. I've been told that the renewal rate is every 4 hours or so. Does the DHCP renewal request force a new IP address everytime or is it a standard dhcp where my mac address will be cached and I'm more than likely to be given the same IP each time, though it could change every so often.

3) How exactly does the setup work ? Do I simply setup my ethernet card to recieve it's info from DHCP or do I have to setup PPPoE etc.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give on this.
slaine

sceptre

(Verb is probably going to slap me silly for passing over three threads in one day)

Moving to Nets/Comms. More of a Nets/Comms sort of thingie

Dustaz

Think of them as gifts from us to you verb

lynchie

1) Is there much problem with congestion. I'm going to go for the 512k option and wonder how much of that I'll actually get.
Not sure, dont have the service....using DSL but AFAIK there is no congestion at the moment as there is only a small area using cable internet at the moment.

2) I know the IP address is dynamic. I've been told that the renewal rate is every 4 hours or so. Does the DHCP renewal request force a new IP address everytime or is it a standard dhcp where my mac address will be cached and I'm more than likely to be given the same IP each time, though it could change every so often.
DHCP renewal works like this. You ask the DHCP server for an IP. It gives you an IP and caches your mac address. You hold the lease on the IP until it expires. Once your nic stays on the network, it'll keep renewing its ip. This basically extends its lease further. You'll keep the IP until you disconenct off the network. Two things can happen when you reconnect. One, you get the same IP adress off the server again as it remembers your mac address. Or, while you were away, loads of other machines were looking for ips' and the server had no choice but to give yours to somebody else, in which case you'll get a new ip.

3) How exactly does the setup work ? Do I simply setup my ethernet card to recieve it's info from DHCP or do I have to setup PPPoE etc.
As I said, I dont have cable, but it should work as follows. You put 2 nics in your linux box, one for your LAN, the other goes to your ethernet cable modem. Then just use the roaring penguin pppoe client (or another pppoe client) to make the connection. AFAIK, the roaring penguin docs cover everything needed to setup the connection.

Make sure you have a decent firewall setup on your linux box.

For enabling incoming SSH conenctions to the linux box, just add a rule on the firewall. To enable connections into your LAN, you'll have to add some port forwarding rules on your linux firewall.

slaine

1) Not much congestion is good. Especially seeing as RedHat 8.0 should be out around the time I get the connection

2) I know how dhcp works. But I have a feeling that NTL's dhcp server is slightly modified and that it will force a new IP at every renewal. would be a fairly simple mod to dhcp and would make sense if you didn't want your customers to host web sites etc on their home PC's. You can offer them a hosting service for that

3) Wasn't sure if I needed PPPoE.

I've ordered the service anyhow. I'm sure I can do something about posting the new IP after each renewal (if it changes) to a hosted box.

Cheers
Glen

lynchie

You dont have to worry about your ip changing. Just sign up to one of the dynamic dns providers, e.g. http://www.dyndns.org or http://www.dns2go.com , and you just run a script in cron every hour or so which will update your dns name with your new ip. So you can always access your machine using http://mymachine.dyndns.org etc...

Kev

I have had the service for a while now and find it very good.

i havent noticed any congestion, i always get the full download speed and sometimes even over 70KB

I have a broadband router connected to my modem and left on 24/7 to share the connection, so i keep the ip, i cant remember how likely you are to get a new one each time.

pppoe is not used.

slaine

Thanks Kev, that is exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for.

Roll on Tuesday

Glen

MiCr0

i've had it for nearly 10months and its great
i got the connection shared amoungst 3 pc's - no problem @ all