NEWBIE: Logging into Cox Cable service

[Roop Nanuwa]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 10:10:41 -0500, James A. Coulter
<james.coulter at cox.net> wrote:
> I am running FreeBSD 4.10 and am trying to connect to my Cox ISP via a an
> Ethernet nic and cable modem.
> 
> I have DHCP for the nic enabled in /etc/rc.conf and can obtain an IP address
> from my Windows 98 gateway, but when I connect the nic to the cable modem
> and reboot I do not get a response from the cox DHCP server.

Cox.net is different from many other ISPs in that it only allows connections
based upon registered MAC addresses. If you're not familiar with them,
MAC addresses are globally unique identifiers assigned to each and
every NIC. I believe the Cox.net setup CD that you speak of registers
the MAC address with Cox for you. Of course, the NIC in your
FreeBSD box has a different MAC address than the one in your
Win98 box so Cox is saying "hey, this is not the computer
that's allowed to be connecting to our service!"

To resolve this problem, either call up their tech support
and ask them to add your FreeBSD NIC's MAC address
to your allowed list or see if you can do it yourself
by going to cox's account administration webpage.

If you don't know the MAC address of your FreeBSD NIC,
you can view it by running 'dmesg' and looking at the line
where the system loads your NIC. It'll be listed there.

--roop