On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Chris Ralph wrote:
> I asked about connecting to Optus At Home cable modem service here a while
> ago and now I've finally gotten around to actually trying on a friend's system.
> My system is A1200 50MHz/'060 48+2Meg ram & CNet PCMCIA card.
>
> It worked - eventually - but I'm wondering how much was because I could get
> the settings from the Win2000 machine, whose connection I used.
>
> I put in his "hostname" in the MiamiDX box for DHCP. I put his username
> into the userlist and the name he uses for the local household network as
> group.
The username and workgroup name are irrelevant unless you use Samba. In
any case, that's an entirely different meaning of "group".
> The only things Optus supplied were a CD of Win98 software with a card
> attached which gave his username (email prefix) and his cryptic hostname.
The "cryptic" hostname is important, because the DHCP server uses it to
identify the machine.
> My information was that everything else was obtained by DHCP - the IP
> address, the subnet mask and the default gateway. Putting this config into
> the MiamiDX TCP/IP page didn't seem to work. We were able to extract
Umm, there's no place to put the information in the TCP/IP page - it goes
in the Interface definition.
> numerical values for these from the Win2000 machine, and when these were
> entered, it eventually worked. The Win2000 machine also listed a DHCP
> server address, but I couldn't see where to put it, and 2 DNS servers -
MiamiDx doesn't seem to have a place to specify the server address, so it
probably assumes that it can send it as a broadcast.
> which I did add. It also listed a date for a "lease obtained", with an
> expiry 1 week later.
The DNS server addresses can be obtained via DHCP, although there are some
circumstances where you need to configure them statically.
> The user says that he has a fixed IP, but this info was not supplied as
> part of the setup data by Optus. What I'm worried about is whether - given
Typically they provide the IP via DHCP, but always assign the same IP. In
my case, I believe the IP addresses were on the installation receipt.
> just a username and hostname - I will be able to get the other info via
Only the hostname matters.
> DHCP to start myself off. Perhaps, because the Win2000 machine already had a
> "lease", my attempt to get those numbers via DHCP failed. Or perhaps we
> should have powered down the modem and started from a clean slate.
> The modem is a "DOCSIS" standard cable modem.
If it's like AT&T@Home, you need to pay extra to get multiple IPs.
Otherwise, you'll need to take one machine offline before you can put the
other online, or arrange some form of NAT/SOCKS setup to share the link.
And Windoze (9x at least) doesn't really have the concept of an offline
Ethernet unless you either shut it down or play registry games.
If you do get multiple IPs, you should also get multiple hostnames. This
will distinguish the machines from each other.
> I'm signing up for the service, even if I have to borrow a PC to initialise
> it, but I'd rather be able to connect immediately, instead of looking silly
> in front of the hardware installer.
You should be able to use it directly, either with a static config or with
DHCP, but not simultaneously with two machines on one IP address. To do
it with DHCP, just set all the IP address types to "DHCP", and in the
TCP/IP settings window of the Interface settings, enable DHCP, enable
using the hostname, and put in the proper hostname for your provider. If
you want to get the DNS IPs automatically, that setting is in the same
window.
On Fri, 9 Feb 2001, Flavio Stanchina wrote:
> As far as I know, the DHCP client sends its first request (DHCP discover)
> as a broadcast, and that's exactly because in this way you don't need to
> know the DHCP server's address beforehand, so there shouldn't be a place
> where you can type the DHCP server address; maybe one where you can read
Well, there are sometimes difficulties with broadcasts, so the ability to
specify a unicast DHCP server address is useful, but MiamiDx doesn't seem
to have that. Note that you can't use a directed broadcast without
knowing the netmask, making the local hardware broadcast (255.255.255.255)
the only possibility, and that isn't supposed to go through routers.
> it afterwards, but there is no need either. The "broken DHCP
> implementation used by Windows", as the MiamiDx guide puts it, also wants
> an hostname in the request, and I guess that might be the "cryptic
> hostname" you have on your card.
The idea of using a hostname is certainly reasonable, since tying it to
the MAC address was a headache, but I believe Microsoft implemented it in
a weird way.
Fred Wright
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