Fedora 9 can't ping to Westell 6100 DSL Modem
 

Hi-

I hope someone out there has seen this one...

My household currently runs on Fedora 9 (two computers, one laptop). I have AT&T DSL. Until recently I had a perfectly good system working with a Motorola V2210 DSL modem. Firefox worked and so did Thunderbird. Everything was fine. Then my V2210 catastrophically failed and I had to get a new DSL modem, which was supplied by AT&T. The new modem is a Westell F90-610025-06 DSL modem. I am now unable to ping the modem from my Linux boxes.

There's a couple of twists.

1. I have a dual boot Windows box in the house. When booted under
Windows, the computer connects just fine to the internet. Computer
running Windows pings the DSL modem A-OK. When
booted under Linux, the same computer with the very same wiring
refuses to even ping the Westell modem.
2. I have an old RH 9 system. This machine does not successfully ping
the Westell modem, either
3. I checked with wireshark, and can see the network traffic going back
and forth. In addition, I checked the arp table and the Westell
modem shows up there. All traffic shows up as IPv4, which is
how my original network was set up.
4. Tried flushing the firewall using iptables --flush. No luck.

Of course, AT&T has no one that has a clue about Linux, so tech support is non-existent from the provider. I googled around, but can't seem to find anyone who's not been able to ping a DSL modem. BTW, when I plug back in the old V2210 (and change nothing else), I'm pinging again just fine from all the Linux boxes in the house.

If anyone can help me, I'd sure appreciate it. I'm sort of wondering if it has anything to do with SELinux...? maybe not, but I'm totally bamboozled by this one.

pjz

BTW-

Wondering how to "thank" someone. I don't use the forum very often, but when I have the community often has useful stuff. I try to show my appreciation in the reply, but don't really know how to get that to register with the site.

thanks again
pjz

Sounds like you make need to make some changes to network manager in Fedora 9 so that it will pickup the Westell DSL. That is the same DSL that I use, when I first set it up it was in windows and Fedora picked it right up.
In your case you have the IP of the other DSL in network Manager and it needs to be reset for the new one.
Hope that you understand what I've tried to say.

DCOH-

Thanks for the reply.

The two modems have identical IP addresses as seen from the house network - 192.168.1.254. Is there something else that needs to be set for Fedora to pick up that modem? maybe some autonegotiate stuff? I should think that would be fairly standard...

pjz

Have you gone into network manager and activated the Eth0? It's been a long time since I've used Fedora 9 and I believe the names have changed on a few things. Other than activating the eth0, you may need to see if you can access the modem from a web browser using 192.168.0.0.1 with a password of admin and check your setup there. I can't think of any thing else right now.

DCOH-

The ethernet link is up and working okay. I have a second computer hooked to the network and can ping that second computer no problem. I've tried power cycling the ethernet switch with no good result.

Tried this experiment: plugged the Linux box directly into the Westell modem, and put wireshark on the affected ethernet port. I see the arp activity in both directions, so I know that works. As related, checked the arp table and the Westell modem shows up just fine. I see what appears to be a correctly formatted ping emerge outbound from the ethernet port on the Linux box, but get no reply at all from the Westell DSL modem. This points the finger at the Westell DSL modem.

In short, why would the Westell DSL modem just swallow (or perhaps drop) the ping request? can't figure this one out. Is there some sort of configuration thing I have to do to the Westell modem to enable something? By plugging the Linux box back-to-back with the Westell DSL modem into its own little 2-node network, I rule out issues with the ethernet switch or other network issues such as naming collisions.

any thoughts? It'd be great if I had a way to contact Westell directly, since if you don't have Apple or Windows, AT&T punts immediately.

pjz

it might be better to install the CURRENT fedora 11
there have been changes in the kernel and it might auto detect and set up the wireless.

John-

I expect that it's frequently better to be running the latest and greatest. Up until this happened, I had a real nice setup that I was happy with (if it ain't broke don't fix it). However, now it IS broke (so to speak), so probably it's time to upgrade.

If there's something that the 11 doesn't handle that I'm doing with 9, I can always regroup. BTW, this isn't a wireless setup. I'm CAT-5 throughout the house. All comments apply to an entirely copper setup. For instance, when I back-to-back'ed my Westell with the Fedora 9 box (that used to work even with an ethernet switch in between), it was a cable that I plugged into the port on each respective box.

Just clarifying. I'll get F11 and try it out. Let's see what happens - I'll let you guys know.

pjz

Tied this up.

Got another copy of the Motorola V2210 DSL modem and that solved the problem. Never did get it to work with the Westell 6100...

Thanks to everyone for taking a shot at this.

pjz