DSL support

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of R. W.
> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 4:40 PM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: DSL support
>
>
> On Saturday 06 November 2004 15:34, Mark wrote:
> > I am on sbc dsl and found this page covered the setup.
> >
> > http://renaud.waldura.com/doc/freebsd/pppoe/
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 09:54:30AM -0800, William Scott wrote:
> > > Dear Sir or Madam,
> > >
> > > Is there any support/documentation for configuring FreeBSD for
> > > use with a DSL modem (my ISP is SBC)?
>
> I recently had some trouble in setting up an ADSL modem (it didn't work
> with 5.2.1). What I did in the end was buy a 4-port ADSL NAT router,
> and I think it's actually for the best. They are quite cheap these
> days, and they have some strong advantages over a basic modem.
>

Hi R.W.,

  I work at an ISP and before anyone goes running off and buying a
ADSL router please consider this.

  We have recommended these for the past 3 years now, for DSL lines,
ever since we started selling DSL.  The big advantage of them from
our point of view is that windows systems tend to not get infected
with viruses as rapidly - thus we get fewer support calls.  The
primary one we have always recommended has been the Linksys BEFSR41.
This one has several advantages - it can act as a router -or- address
translator, it has logging, and can send the log to a remote syslogger
host.  (there is a program someone wrote for FreeBSD that captures the
log output, BTW)

  HOWEVER - we are no longer recommending the Linksys devices.  Why -
because over the last 3 months we have had an increasing number of them
which have been installed for several years, just fail.  And the failures
aren't pretty.  Usually the packet flows through the router start getting
slower and slower, and the user gets an increasing number of disconnections
from websites and such that they go to.  It is insidious, and very very
difficult to tell the difference from either a congested ISP or virus
activity, so most often the user just gets more and more dissatisfied
with their DSL line, never realizing it's the cheap router that's the
problem.  When things get bad enough they start power-cycling the router
and that 'fixes' things for a few hours, and the customer
gets the impression that this is 'normal' for these devices.

  It has almost cost us several customers as the customer blames the ISP
for slowness and not their $35 cheapass device.  And initially when it
started happening, we didn't catch on that quick.  And we have spent
far too much time with troubleshooting them now.  Unfortunately a number
of business customers we have, put these devices in a couple years back
when they signed up, and now these are coming back to haunt us.

  And the thing that really scares me is that we have recently had a
few of these problems show up with dlink and other manufacturers devices.
I am just hoping that this isn't the start of a trend.

  Today what we recommend ethernet-to-ethernet Cisco routers or Cisco
PIX firewalls for businesses.  The PIX and modern Cisco IOS can be
setup to speak PPPoE directly.  And a used 10-user PIX 501 can be had
on Ebay fairly cheaply, I have seen them go as cheap as $200, and it
is ideal for a home setup - assuming that is, that someone at the house
is really in to networking and wants to work with the real equipment
that industry uses, not the toys that you get at Fry's.

  And for home users that are technical but too cheap to do that, I tell
them to use a PC setup as a router, NOT one of these.

  Unfortunately we have way too many nontechnical windows users who these
devices are pretty much the only way they have of putting up a firewall.
Nowadays when I talk with one of them I put the Fear of God into them
about these devices with instructions to call immediately if they notice
the slightest problem with their connections, and I cross my fingers
that when the time comes for the device to die, that they remember what
I told them.

  One last thing with these, while they can do a lot, if you need to
run a pptp server, it is very problematic to get them to work.  At least
when using a FreeBSD system as a router, you get a real public IP number
on the outside interface, rather than everything being private, and
if you want to run a server, you will have fewest problems with this
setup over the long run.

Ted