Topic: e-smith & NTL Broadband Service

[Julian Lewis-Booth]

Is anyone else using a digital braodband connection with e-smith?

I have an e-smith box that I was using to route my dial up connection to a small LAN. I now am on NTL's broadband trial (512Kbps) which works by registering the MAC address of the Ethernet card with the NTL server.

The reg process is two stage and I cannot as yet  get my e-smith box to work with the faster connection.

The process goes as follows:

First the local Cable STB hands the machine connected to it a local IP address in the 10.13.xxx.xxx range, it is always 10.13.xxx.1 and sets itself as the router.

The 10.13.xxx.xxx address allows you to conntect to a private web page on NTL's server where you enter your pin no and account password, from here you register your machine and give it a name.

An immediate reboot of both STB and pc are required. When you restart you have a valid IP address assigned from the NTL DNS and can access the Internet directly.

The problems I am currently having are:

The External interface on the e-smith box (Known good with a driver that is working (3c90x) will not pick up a 10.13.xxx.xxx IP from the local Cable STB, having checked the Messages log the DCHP process times out on start up after issueing the DISCOVER command via the interface. No amount of blunt ifconfig commands will improve this.

When I set the External interface with a valid local IP and set the router etc. to the Local Cable STB I cannot via Lynx see the NTL set up page to register the card, neither can I get to it from any machine on my private LAN.

Any help will be appreciated. My options are to remove the registered Ethernet card from my desktop and put it directly into the e-smith box and hope that this has the effect of taking the registration with it. Or I have to hope that someone else has had the same or similar problems and can give me some usefull advice!

Thanks

Julian

[Des Dougan]

Julian,

I had a similar problem with ADSL - Lynx wouldn't connect to Telus's registration page. I got past it by calling their tech support and asking them to register the MAC address for me. No problems after restarting networking.

I assume that the ISP server is looking for either a graphical browser or a Windows/Mac PC...

Sorry I couldn't offer more assistance.

Des Dougan

[Martin Warnes]

I had e-smith working with NTL broadband without any bother, but it was in the days of the old dial up customer support, get put on hold for 2 hours and register manually.

You mention cable STB, are you plugging directly into the TV set top box? or do you mean the cable modem? I was under the impression you had to have a cable modem and you couldn't use the ethernet port on the TV STB.

If it is a Cable modem then here are a couple of things to consider:

1. You must register the MAC of the cable modem, NOT the ethernet card in your e-smith server.

2. Make sure you external interface IS really your external interface, I've seen a few problems related  to having them the wrong way around.

3. If NThell's automated registration service is like their other registration servers then it's probably using HTTPS:// not HTTP:// which lynx doesn't support.

Your best bet would be to phone and get NTL to register the MAC address for you

[Julian Lewis-Booth]

Sorry for not being too clear about the NTL service I am using.

The Broadband service through Digital TV does not require an external Cable modem. The functionality is actually contained within the Digital STB.

With the new broadband service that they are now rolling out there is an automatic registration system and unfortunately support is patchy at best! They will not register the MAC address manually any more, you have to use their automated system.

Mention any other OS but Windows and MacOS and the immediate retort is that they do not support it (into this category also any mention of LAN, firewall etc. etc.)

It is the MAC address of the network card that you need to register as the local STB is supposed to offer an initial private( to NTL) IP to access the auto registration system.

My problems are still that the e-smith box will not pick up an IP address from the local STB to connect to the private Autoregistration system, if it could I should be able to use a browser from the private side of my LAN to register the card.

Does anyone know how to force the card to pick up a DHCP address without sending username or MAC address initially?

[Martin Warnes]

Didn't know they were providing that service, learnt something new today.

What sort of STB is it? the standard PACE box? If so I can take a look on mine later this evening.

Have you tried extending the timeout period of dhcpcd? the 60 second default may not be enough.

you could try dhcpcd -t 120 eth1


You could also try posting a request in:

ntl.discussion.home-networking
ntl.discussion.linux

Quite a few guys using e-smith there

[Julian Lewis-Booth]

Yes it is the standard Pace box, the only caveat is I am an ex Cable & Wireless customer who used to use different spec Pace kit to the rest of the NTL network.

If it any consolation most of the NTL tech and sales staff don't know, when I was signed up I was told I would need a Cable Modem etc. etc. when the starter kit containing an Ethernet card and 20M fly lead I was a little cross as I could have got up and running much quicker.

I will try the extended dhcpcd timeout, I will be messing more this evening, as I might grab the registered Ethernet card out of my desktop and drop it in the e-smith box to hope that the registered MAC address carries over.

Thanks for your help

Regards

Julian

[Martin Warnes]

Before you go pulling the NIC's you could try issuing an "ifconfig" and use the "hw" option to pass the MAC address of the registered NIC.

[Julian Lewis-Booth]

Well, a convoluted way round the issue and pulling the registered card from my PC and dropping it the e-smith server then specifically running dhchcd -t 120 eth0 (my interfaces needed swapping because the first one found by e-smith is the on board interface).

Anyway it works, very nicely I will say, thanks to all those who helped and if you need some assistance on setting up NTL digital broadband in the UK with and e-smith box I now know more than I really wanted to!

Regards

Julian