Topic: Telstra Bits

[Luke Drumm]

Hi,

Can anybody suggest a reason (on the e-smith side of things) why I can't access the telstra advance usage pages available at:

https://m10.bigpond.net.au:8443/rhwc/smu

I realise it could very well be a problem on their end but I just want to make sure it's nothing obvious on my end.

When I try it, I get:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While trying to retrieve the URL: m10.bigpond.net.au:8443

The following error was encountered:

Access Denied.
Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Generated ...

Could the requested port of 8443 be an issue for the ip-chains default setting?

Thanks,

Luke

[Gordon Rowell]

Luke Drumm wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Can anybody suggest a reason (on the e-smith side of things)
> why I can't access the telstra advance usage pages available at:
>
> https://m10.bigpond.net.au:8443/rhwc/smu
>
> I realise it could very well be a problem on their end but I
> just want to make sure it's nothing obvious on my end.
>
> When I try it, I get:
>
> ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved
> [...]

Groan. This is one of the annoyances from various cable providers,
including Telstra and @Home.

They _require_ your domainname to be set to
their domain or their pages don't work. The most common is that they
have imbedded URLs without domain names (e.g. http://www/....)

You will probably find that one of the pages has just such a redirect
or a frame containing a reference to one.

If you are using a *nix client, you can set your DNS search order to
search their domain first for unqualified domain names. If you are
using a Windows/Mac client, you need DNS on the e-smith server to
do this for you, and the only solution currently is to set your e-smith
server to use the ISP's domain name and DNS servers as specified in
your customer details. Or add each shortname you find to your local
hosts table - yecch.

The problem lies with the ISP, but they are unlikely to change, so
we are discussing ways in which we can make this easier.

Gordon

[David]

This COULD be the problem. I saw this on www.slashdot.com last night.

========
cjm_in_oz writes: "Since 4pm yesterday, Australia's leading ISP has lost 60% of its bandwidth due to either an earthquake, or as is more likely, a ship's anchor. Read more here ." Most of the entire continent's bandwidth, you see, courses through a particular manhole ... sheesh. This sure sounds like an argument for more and more fiber, along different courses.


http://www.theage.com.au/frontpage/20001120/A64936-2000Nov20.html
========



>Can anybody suggest a reason (on the e-smith side of things) why I can't access >the telstra advance usage pages available at:
>
>https://m10.bigpond.net.au:8443/rhwc/smu

>I realise it could very well be a problem on their end but I just want to make sure >it's nothing obvious on my end.

>When I try it, I get:

>ERROR
>The requested URL could not be retrieved

[Luke Drumm]

Through setting my dns search path to include telstra.com and bigpond.net.au first on one of linux clients, I was able get one of the links working (ie. the one with a vaugley normal url eg. m10.bigpond.net....). The 'local' urls are still failing me though.
eg. http://www/cable etc.

Any suggestions on how to get these type up and going?

Regards,
Luke

[Alec Norek]

For what its worth I just tried that link & was successful on the second attempt.  I think that it was too busy the first time.  I am using Telstra ADSL, with e-smith and Win98SE clients.

[Gordon Rowell]

Alec Norek wrote:

> For what its worth I just tried that link & was successful
> on the second attempt.  I think that it was too busy the first
> time.  I am using Telstra ADSL, with e-smith and Win98SE
> clients.

What are Telstra using for ADSL authentication? Are they using the BIDS
system from BigPond Advance, DHCP, PPPoE, or something else?

I.e. what did you need to use Telstra's ADSL offering with e-smith? It's kind
of hard for us to get access to it over here

Thanks,

Gordon

[Alec Norek]

Gordon, hopefully I have understood your question.

Telstra provide either an external DSL modem using an Ethernet interface or a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, or an internal modem.  Modems using an Ethernet interface use PPPoE protocol between the modem and the Telstra Access Server (TAS), and require Client Software (Enternet from NTS) to be installed on the PC to allow the Dial Up Networking session to interface with the Ethernet port.  USB and Internal modems do not require any client software but are provided with device drivers. USB modems will only allow a single concurrent session.  I opted for the external modem for easy interface into e-smith.  At this stage Telstra only offer dynamic IP addresses.

As soon as the technicians left, I installed the NIC into my e-smith, used DHCP to get my IP and installed Charlie Brady's PPPoE RPM and it all worked like a charm.  DHCP is also used for my internal network.

I then uninstalled their client software on my Win98 PCs and tweaked a few other settings.  e-smith is configured to not use a proxy server, but each Win PC uses an automatic configuration script in the LAN settings of IE5.5.

Regards

Alec

[Gordon Rowell]

Alec Norek wrote:

> Gordon, hopefully I have understood your question.
> [...]

Yes, though I'm more confused

> As soon as the technicians left, I installed the NIC into my
> e-smith, used DHCP to get my IP and installed Charlie Brady's
> PPPoE RPM and it all worked like a charm.  DHCP is also used
> for my internal network.

Hmm - so they're using DHCP _and_ PPPoe? This seems strange.

Are you using "DHCP - send Ethernet address" or
"DHCP - send hostname" in e-smith?

Have you tried just using PPPoE, or is extra information gained from
the DHCP lease?

Gordon

[Alec Norek]

I used option 1 in e-smith configuration i.e. "Use DHCP (Send system name as client identifier).  I haven't experimented with anything else as I was greatful that it all worked so well and if it aint broken.......  I have a feeling that extra information is gained from the DHCP lease.

In TCP/IP properties on my Win clients, I had to enable DNS, leave domain name blank and add "vic.bigpond.net.au" to the domain suffix search order.  Wouldn't work otherwise.

Hopefully that has answered your question.  If you think that there is a better way, please let me know.

Regards

[Jason]

I have a problem with ADLS from telstra right now...
Previously I had my ip going to dyndns being in the range of 61.9.148.xxx
now when I go to dyndns it reads 61.9.128.xxx
This means all my mail is bouncing no-one can see my domain and telstra say they do not know what is wrong.. they also stated that unless you have a corporate plan you are not allowed to have a web server....
Then in the same breath they say that they do not offer any web space for this service and then they talk about domain registration services...
Thay are all starting to annoy me.....

Anyone else on adsl having this problem.....

This started last week...

Jason..

[Alec Norek]

Telstra doesn't want mini ISPs springing up everywhere robbing them of additional revenue.  That is why they assign IPs dynamically to make it harder to host your own domains and that is why dynamic DNS providers are required.

Anyhow to answer your question, I will have to assume that you rebooted your e-smith and now you have a different IP (which is yours until you reboot again).  Your dynamic DNS provider has to be told about this somehow.  Obviously in your case it didn't happen automatically with a start up script, so for the time being, you have to go to your provider's site and update your IP manually.  If this does not help you, then you will have to be more specific.

Alec

[Richard]

Hi Guys,

Well we are just about to get ADSL.  We have contacts and actually telstra is offering STATIC IP.  It is being trialed now.  The technology is proven.  They just had to get their business and pricing models setup.  We were told that it will reflect their current ISDN model.

We currently use telstra ISDN and are going to get ADSL.  We =may= be allowed to participate in the trial for static IP.  They have not asked us and they most certianly don't need people to ask.  So please - I don't want to be responsible for a flood of messages regarding STATIC IP and then telstra get shitty with me.

I provide this information as a favour.  The trial has started now or veyr shortly with full service being aimed to be offered in janurary.  I got this info from a good business contact who put us in contact with one of their engineers.  The sales people do not know about it.

I am sure that there is no big evil conspiracy to not give STATIC IP to people on ADSL.  Do they expect us all to cough up $$$$$$ for more expensive connectiosn that we don't need?  And if we did we coudl afford it or would use a datacentre.

We need static IP as we will run our DNS and mail at our premises.  Our main big web servers are at a data centre.  

Anyhow so hold tight - it is coming!

Now my question.

We have a DLINK ISDN router that routes our 2 lot of 8 IP's we have.  We will now have ADSL.  What is involved?  I am researching the ins and outs of ADSL now.  But do I really need windows and what not?  Can I just plug a router into a "live hub" which my esmith box connects to (And other "livew servers - DNS, etc) as I did our current ISDN router to our esmith box and before that my toil and groil installed redhat 5.2 firewall, masq machine?

Cheers,
Richard.

[Richard]

Hi Guys,

Well we are just about to get ADSL.  We have contacts and actually telstra is offering STATIC IP.  It is being trialed now.  The technology is proven.  They just had to get their business and pricing models setup.  We were told that it will reflect their current ISDN model.

We currently use telstra ISDN and are going to get ADSL.  We =may= be allowed to participate in the trial for static IP.  They have not asked us and they most certianly don't need people to ask.  So please - I don't want to be responsible for a flood of messages regarding STATIC IP and then telstra get shitty with me.

I provide this information as a favour.  The trial has started now or veyr shortly with full service being aimed to be offered in janurary.  I got this info from a good business contact who put us in contact with one of their engineers.  The sales people do not know about it.

I am sure that there is no big evil conspiracy to not give STATIC IP to people on ADSL.  Do they expect us all to cough up $$$$$$ for more expensive connectiosn that we don't need?  And if we did we coudl afford it or would use a datacentre.

We need static IP as we will run our DNS and mail at our premises.  Our main big web servers are at a data centre.  

Anyhow so hold tight - it is coming!

Now my question.

We have a DLINK ISDN router that routes our 2 lot of 8 IP's we have.  We will now have ADSL.  What is involved?  I am researching the ins and outs of ADSL now.  But do I really need windows and what not?  Can I just plug a router into a "live hub" which my esmith box connects to (And other "livew servers - DNS, etc) as I did our current ISDN router to our esmith box and before that my toil and groil installed redhat 5.2 firewall, masq machine?

Cheers,
Richard.

[Graeme Robinson]

Richard, given the date of this message you probably have it sorted out by now. The complexity in your solution (I'm assuming you haven't done it yet as Telstra are still not offering fixed IP for ADSL AFAIK ) will be in the zone transfer, not in connecting physically.  The PPOE in E-Smith 4.1 and above works like a dream with Telstra's ADSL service.  You need two network cards in your e-smith server, one that connects to the ADSL modem and one to your local net.  You need to reconfigure the server so that one card is external using ppoe and the other is internal and connect them appropriately.  Then just enter your username/password info in the reconfig screen and reboot -it will work!

Migrating the system from your ISDN link to ADSL will almost certainly involve change to your IP range or address.  To guarrantee your domain isn't off the air due to DNS update propagation and physically reconfiguring the e-smith server you might want to consider putting in a temporary e-smith server to run the new connection or run the old ISDN link while the new link is configured.  When it's reliable you can make the DNS change for your domain(s) and then leave both links active until propagation is complete and then disconnect the ISDN link and server.

Other issues to be aware of:
-  you should disable dhcp on the ISDN server prior to installing the ADSL server.Richard wrote:
>
> Hi Guys,
>
> Well we are just about to get ADSL.  We have contacts and
> actually telstra is offering STATIC IP.  It is being trialed
> now.  The technology is proven.  They just had to get their
> business and pricing models setup.  We were told that it will
> reflect their current ISDN model.
>
> We currently use telstra ISDN and are going to get ADSL.  We
> =may= be allowed to participate in the trial for static IP.
> They have not asked us and they most certianly don't need
> people to ask.  So please - I don't want to be responsible
> for a flood of messages regarding STATIC IP and then telstra
> get shitty with me.
>
> I provide this information as a favour.  The trial has
> started now or veyr shortly with full service being aimed to
> be offered in janurary.  I got this info from a good business
> contact who put us in contact with one of their engineers.
> The sales people do not know about it.
>
> I am sure that there is no big evil conspiracy to not give
> STATIC IP to people on ADSL.  Do they expect us all to cough
> up $$$$$$ for more expensive connectiosn that we don't need?
> And if we did we coudl afford it or would use a datacentre.
>
> We need static IP as we will run our DNS and mail at our
> premises.  Our main big web servers are at a data centre.
>
> Anyhow so hold tight - it is coming!
>
> Now my question.
>
> We have a DLINK ISDN router that routes our 2 lot of 8 IP's
> we have.  We will now have ADSL.  What is involved?  I am
> researching the ins and outs of ADSL now.  But do I really
> need windows and what not?  Can I just plug a router into a
> "live hub" which my esmith box connects to (And other "livew
> servers - DNS, etc) as I did our current ISDN router to our
> esmith box and before that my toil and groil installed redhat
> 5.2 firewall, masq machine?
>
> Cheers,
> Richard.