Access to Time Warner cable network

[Da Rock]

On 04/02/12 04:10, Fbsd8 wrote:
> Well here is the results of my attempts to connect to Time Warner 
> cable network.
>
> After 4 calls to their call center which was in the Philippines where 
> all the people just read a scripted answer FAQ and only had the 
> ability to remotely reset the modem. I finally requested to talk to 
> the top support level in the USA. Finally got a tech support person 
> who knew something about how their network was configured.
>
> Their modems at power up time run a script that is really a private 
> LAN using 192.168.x.x to auto verify the cable modem mac address 
> against a table of authorized accounts. At the conclusion the 10.2.0.1 
> dhcp server issues a real routable ip address along with the routable 
> 2 dns ip address.
>
> Now this long duration hand shake takes about 40 seconds and on a 
> windows system, windows keeps looping through the ip and dns acquire 
> code until it succeeds. Now on freebsd the ifconfig_fxp0="DHCP" seems 
> to only cycle a single time and results in a "no carrier" status in 
> the boot up msg log.
>
> After the Freebsd 8.2 boot process completed and I saw "no carrier" 
> status i issued "/etc/rc.d/netif restart" command which resulted in 
> the same status. This is when I posted to the questions list for help. 
> It was after the post that I had my conversation with the level 3 tech 
> support guy and learned about the long hand shake process. I next 
> tried  issuing (ifconfig fxp0 up) after the freebsd boot process 
> completed and to my surprise I had a public routable ip address. So I 
> have to find a way during the boot process to give the 
> ifconfig_fxp0="DHCP" statement in the /etc/rc.conf some delay time. 
> But I think Freebsd 9.0 has an built in "up" process in its boot up 
> process that may solve this problem.
>
> Another thing I learned from the level 3 support guy is that the cable 
> modem has to be reset by unplugging it's power if I want to move the 
>        output cable to a different device, such as from the window box 
> to the freebsd box or to a router.
>
> The bottom line is I have things working now and there was nothing 
> wrong with either my window box or my freebsd box. Its just the Time 
> Warner cable modem box and the non-standard way it's configured.

I had my suspicions, but I had no way to actually know. Cable modems 
work the same here: they become 'attached' to a given mac address and 
have to be reset when moved to a new device. Best to use a router to 
save that one.

Simply unplugging and plugging in the cable should have told FBSD to 
reconfigure that network.

Providing more complete information to the list for help may have given 
you the solution sooner.