Hi everyone. I've tried to find solutions to this in all sorts of forums, and can find conflicting information, but nothing that helps my problem. I've just purchased Verizon DSL and it came with the free Westell Model 327W. I ran through the setup on my wife's laptop (Win XP) and set up username, password etc... Now I want to set it up on my Linux box (I'm a super newbie to Linux) Here's what I've done so far.

Downloaded and installed rp-pppoe 3.5. used ./go and setup ppp0
tried several different setups here for service name and user name, none worked. tried service name blank, username myuser@verizon.net. Also tried service name verizon.net, username myuser. also verizon.net with myuser@verizon.net - you get the picture here.

ethernet card is up. Ran ifup eth0 to make sure. Ran ifconfig and got this:

eth0 Link encap: Ethernet HWaddr FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
inet addr:192.168.1.46 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
up broadcast running multicast MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets: 149 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:264 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelin:100
RX bytes:20674 (20.1 Kb) TX bytes:11988 (11.7 Kb)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xd400

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP Loopback running MTU:16426 Metric:1
RX packets:38630 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:38630 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2637274 (2.5 Mb) TX bytes:2637274


everytime I run adsl-start, It takes a minute, then brings me back to prompt - no errors, just no connection to the internet either. I tried communicating with the Westell modem by addressing it directly in Mozilla 192.168.1.1 and I get an error saying access was denied. Can't ping googles IP.

During adsl-setup i entered "server" when it asked me about IP address. I've taken out IP address from eth0 and it is set as "configured by DHCP", so is the PPP0 connection.

It seems I've tried everything (as a newbie) that I know of. Anybody out there know what I may be missing? Please help.

I did some online research. I looks like your Westell is a dsl modem/router. You have 4 ethernet ports and a wireless option. If this is like any normal dsl router, then you do NOT need to do any fancy PPOE setup on the local computers. The dsl router should handle all of that for you. When you set up your wife's computer, you were really just setting up the router.

You should be able to http://192.168.1.1 (assuming that is the IP address of your router) and look at your settings. You say that you can't and that concerns me a little. We'll get it figured out though. You might want to go to your wife's computer, and go start-> run-> type "cmd" without the quotes-> ipconfig. Write down the gateway address. That is the address of your router.

Back in Linux, I suspect your computer is receiving dhcp information. It should just work when you plug it in. You may want to post the following stuff:
Also, try to ping 216.239.39.99
This is one of the IP addresses of Google. If you can get that, then you are only having dns problems. If you can't, they you are getting routing/connection problems.

What does the output of adsl-status say?
After adsl-start is there a ppp0 interface when you run ifconfig?
Try running adsl-start without eth0 being up.

O.k. Here's what I tried.

on my Win XP machine, I can access 192.168.1.1 - my dsl modem
on Linux, when I try to type http://192.168.1.1 in mozilla, I get "the connection was refused when attempting to contact 192.168.1.1
I CAN, ping my XP machine and receive a response.
Google ping doesn't work. And curiously, pinging 192.168.1.1 doesn't respond either. (ILin get "destination host unreachable") both times.

Tried adsl-start withouth eth0 enabled, didn't work.
adsl-start waits about a minute, then does nothing. No PPP0 in ifconfig after adsl-start
adsl-status says, "Link is down (can't read PPPOE PID file /var/run/pppce-adsl.pid.pppoe)

cat /etc/resolve.conf
;generated by /sbin/dhclient-script
search myhome.westell.com
nameserver 192.168.1.1
nameserver 192.168.1.1

route

destination Gateway Genmask Flags Use
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U eth0
169.254.0.0 * 255.255.0.0 U eth0
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U l0
default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG eth0

Sorry. I misled you....
I didn't read the instructions for the modem. gd2shoe is correct you do not need pppoe. All you need to do is configure the eth0 for DHCP.

Bring up eth0 and make sure you have a valid IP address.
If you can ping the XP box then you should be able to ping the modem.

Is that the real MAC for you ethernet adapter?

eth0 is configured for DCHP and from what I can tell when I run ifconfig, I have a valid IP address (.47 is the XP box, .46 is Linux box).

Unless ifconfig is lying to me, FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF is the true hardware address of my onboard ethernet adapter.

Have you tried pinging the modem again?

Still can't ping modem, but can ping XP machine

Try disabling Plug and Play in the motherboard's BIOS.

FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF Does not sound like a viable mac address to me. If it is possible, then there should only be one in existence. Ever played the lottery?

On the other hand, I think some wireless devices can have mac addresses assigned to them. I may be that ndiswrapper or the card driver have a way to do this.

Hmm... And you are connected wirelessly to the modem? This sounds fishy. If I understand your network: Your computer sends out a ping packet wirelessly, the router/modem picks it up and sends it to the XP machine. The XP machine replies, the router passes this wirelessly back to your computer.

I may be misunderstanding your lan setup. If what I just described sounds accurate, then it is not a mac address problem. Can you ping the router from the XP machine?

Well, my BIOS doesn't let me turn plug & play off, but it does let me turn off the onboard LAN, so I grabbed an extra eth card I had hanging around, disabled the onboard LAN and plugged in the card. Worked like a charm. Now, thanks to everyone that gave me a hand, I'm writing this from my Linux Box!! Sweet! Thanks everybody.