My DSL Router Is Being Uncooperative
 

Hi All,

I'm having a problem getting my DSL router/modem (Westell B90-220030-04) to initialize under Slackware 10.1. I have an older computer set up as my router/gateway/firewall/etc... On the linux box, the router is plugged into eth1, and my lan is plugged into eth0 via a hub. For some reason linux will not initialize (guessing here) the router after it has been reset (powered off & powered on). It does send out a dhcp request though. Also, I do not use adsl-start to establish a connection. However when I run the command, the ethernet light on the router does show activity, but no connection is established.

So that being said, this is how I've managed to establish my connection, thus far. I disconnect the router from my linux pc and then connect it to my windows pc. Windows establishes a connection just fine. Once the router is initialized or an initial connection is established (not sure if there's a difference), I reconnect it to the linux pc and run inet1 again. It sends out the dhcp request, gets handed an ip address, and everything works seamlessly afterward.

The best thing I can come up with is that my linux pc is not sending some required info to the modem in order to initialize it. However, windows sends the info because ahh it's idiot-proof and does everything without asking. Anyway once the modem is initialized, it will comply with any dhcp requests it recieves. So, any guesses or ideas about what I need to configure/reconfigure in linux in order to get my modem to initialize on boot up... or at least to initialize without switching cables around like an idiot? Because hey.. there's just something wrong with depending on windows in order to get linux working.

I chose eth0 to use for my DSL modem and mine worked on my initial install of Windows and Linux (well, I had to call the ISP to find out where I needed to click with Windows, Linux just worked).

Have you tried this?:

ifdown eth(what is connected to the DSL modem)
ifup eth(what is connected to the DSL modem)

That will usually bring back my IP when I have to cycle the DSL modem.

After the router has been powered off & powered on (iow reset), 'ifconfig up eth1' and 'ifconfig down eth1' (i believe ifconfig up/down are equivelant to ifup/ifdown in the slackware distro) seem to have no effect. Although, I can tell the dhcpcd deamon sends out the request for an ip address. Nothing gets returned from the router. So, the interface just gets loaded without an ip address/broadcast address/netmask/etc... Now after I use windows to establish an initial connection, ifconfig up/down will bring up the interface and bring it down. Also, I'm pretty sure during bootup the rc.inet1 script attempts to bring up eth1 and sends out the dhcp request. However, nothing is returned so it doesn't keep the interface up. Anyway, I'll post the output of both the inet1 at boot and the results from ifconfig up/down after the router is reset when I get off work this afternoon, but it doesn't really seem to be the issue.

Well.. I figured out a much better solution than swapping cables. I just turned off the dhcp server capabilities in the DSL router and gave my eth1 NIC a static IP address on the same subnet as the router. Everything works great now.

/me Salute!