Cant Connect to Internet- And I have SBC

slyfer55 · 08-04-2006, 12:15 AM

So I installed Ubuntu, on a old computer with 256MB of Ram, everything worked with the installation, so then I go into firefox, expecting everthing to work like it should, and like it does on windows, however nothing worked, I have SBC internet, with a speedstream 5100, ethernet ADSL modem, so I went into networking, and I checked the properties of this etho-0 which I assumed was my ethernet card, and there was a choice of either Static IP or DHCP, now knowing that I did not have static IP, I checked the other one, even though I have no idea what in hells blazes it is. So I browsed around and found that you have to run pppoeconf in terminal, so I did it asked me a series of questions which I assumed the answer to, and bizzarly enough the first one was about dial-up. Wheres Local Area Connection? Wheres the Make a new Connection button? Why isnt this like XP? Do I even need to make a connection? Why isnt it assuming this stuff? after all I do have the most common network setup ever. I love Ubuntu and I want to continue using it but if I cant connect to the internet, then theres simply nothing more to do.

mickyg · 08-04-2006, 03:25 AM

Ok, well I don't use SBC (never heard of them) and I don't use an ADSL modem myself but hopefully I can clarify a few things for you:

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - used to configure network settings for your PC, basically so you don't have to. See Wikipedia for more info, remember, with any problems you have Google is your friend!

Quote:

So I browsed around and found that you have to run pppoeconf in terminal, so I did it asked me a series of questions which I assumed the answer to... Why isn't it assuming this stuff?

Firstly, you know what they say about assuming things.... assumption is the mother of all f*ck ups. Find out what your ISP settings are (from XP if you need to), then you won't have to assume anything. Why would you want it to assume everyone is using an ADSL connection??? That would irritate the hell outta me, half the problem with windows, in my opinion, is that it assumes everything for you, it's MY PC and I'll tell it what to do, not the other way around.

Quote:

... and bizzarly enough the first one was about dial-up.

Probably because an ADSL modem, the same as a standard 56k modem, dials a number to connect to your ISP, it is essentially a glorified dial-up modem.

Quote:

Why isn't this like XP?

I'm going to stat the obvious here, because it isn't XP

Are we to assume it still isn't working?? Do you know if what you assumed were the correct answers to the PPPoE wizard were infact correct?

adz · 08-04-2006, 07:07 AM

You say your modem has an ethernet interface. If that's true then you shouldn't need to run pppoeconfig or anything else like that. Can you look at the output of ifconfig and see if there's an eth0 stanza? Mine looks like this:

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet addr:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx  Bcast:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::200:e2ff:fe73:95a9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4744728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4822662 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:3755471535 (3.4 GiB)  TX bytes:2695035098 (2.5 GiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:3287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:659497 (644.0 KiB)  TX bytes:659497 (644.0 KiB)

If you have one, that means that the interface (in this case your network card and its driver) is up and running. The part that I've bolded ("inet addr") is where your IP address for that interface will be if you've been assigned one (through DHCP). If your modem is anything like mine then it acts like a DHCP server and will dynamically assign you an IP when you request one. Note: this is entirely independent of your ISP assigning you an IP so even if you have a static IP with your ISP, the one you modem assigned you can still be dynamic and the two are entirely different.

If you've got an IP you should be able to browse the net or at least ping your modem/router. To do this, use the command ping <IP address of your router>. Do not include the "<" and ">" in your command.

If you haven't got an IP, or haven't got an eth0 interface up, or don't know your router's IP address then execute the command dhclient eth0 (as root). In Ubuntu you may need to type sudo dhclient eth0. The output should look something like this:

Code:

Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
Listening on LPF/eth0/00:00:e2:73:95:a9
Sending on   LPF/eth0/00:00:e2:73:95:a9
Sending on   Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
receive_packet failed on eth0: Network is down
DHCPOFFER from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx  <--- This is your modem/router's IP
bound to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -- renewal in 14400 seconds.  <--- This is your IP assigned to you by your modem/router

You then should at least be able to ping your modem. If you can, then try to ping an external site such as google. If you can do that then you're right to go on the web.

If you had trouble with any of the above steps, then post back and tell me EXACTLY what you did and post outputs of ifconfig, dhclient eth0, and lspci.

ExplodingTurnip · 08-04-2006, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adz

You say your modem has an ethernet interface. If that's true then you shouldn't need to run pppoeconfig or anything else like that.

The OP will need to run some sort of PPPoE connection software to get online. I know, I use the same service (SBC) and I've got the same modem. If I didn't use Roaring Penguin, then I wouldn't be online.

I don't know where Unbuntu stores the config files for ppp, I use rpppoe on Slackware. On my system the configuration files are stored in /etc/ppp. The only things I did to get my connection working was to add my username and password to /etc/ppp/pppoe.conf and /etc/ppp/pap-secrets. From there all I do is run (as root) the "adsl-start" script during boot and I'm online. If the OP has multiple addresses on the SBC account they'll need to use the full email address and password for the primary email address associated with the account.

Info for rpppoe can be found here. Packages should be available for Ubuntu as well.

adz · 08-05-2006, 08:17 AM

That's pretty stupid. Is that a failing on the part of SBC itself or on the part of the modem they provide? Just about any (decent) modem these days will handle all that and provide you with a swanky webmin interface to configure your heart out as well.

archtoad6 · 08-21-2006, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adz

That's pretty stupid. Is that a failing on the part of SBC itself

Right on -- SBC-Yahoo is available here in Houston & one of the first things you learn in trouble shooting 'net connections here is that they are a$$#0les who force PPPoE on their customers. Of course we also have HALNet from HAL-PC (sorry, Houston only) available

.

One of the easiest ways to deal w/ this is buy a little home router appliance & let it deal w/ PPPoE. As fringe benefits you can share the connection & get the "natural" firewalling that NAT (Network Address Translation) gives you.

adz · 08-21-2006, 08:41 PM

But that's not inherent to PPPoE itself. Just about all ADSL in Australia is PPPoE and 99.9% of all (ADSL) modems behave in the way I described.

archtoad6 · 08-22-2006, 04:36 AM

Interesting perspective, w/o the international participation here, I would have gone on thinking the flaw is in PPPoE.

That doesn't change my opinion of SBC, just the reason for holding it. They still aren't giving the customer a decent experience. I see 3 solutions:

Keep struggling w/ the solutions presented here.
Get the home router I suggested above.
Switch ISP's.

BTW adz, are the ADSL modems offered in Oz internal or external? Here in the US I have only seen/heard of the external ones. It's only through using SmoothWall Express that I knew they also come as PCI cards.

adz · 08-22-2006, 07:15 AM

They are external (all the ones I've heard of anyway). Some have an ethernet interface, some USB, and some have both. Some even have built-in switches (ie you can physically connect more than one device to them) but they pretty much all have routers, NAT/firewalling capabilities, DHCP servers and webmin interfaces in them. Hence, using them is usually as simple as a dhclient eth0 and away you go.