new DSL

[Rick Thomas]

Patrick suggested a commercial pppoe software package.  As long as 
you've got to spend money on this project anyway, I'd recommend a 
piece of hardware called a "firewall router". Linksys and SMC, 
among others, make such boxes.  I use an SMC box called a 
"Barricade" (model number 7004) wide-band router.  The SMC talks 
pppoe as well as all the usual other protocols, so it should work 
with your DSL modem.

The SMC router has 4 ethernet ports -- one uplink to the DSL modem, 
and three downlinks to various parts of your home network.  It sits 
(physically and logically) between your DSL modem and the rest of 
your home network.  It talks whatever's required (probably pppoe, 
in your case) to the DSL modem, and provides a DHCP ethernet 
service to the home network.  It filters the traffic from the DSL 
side to get rid of unwanted packets (mostly probes from various 
viruses) and does NAT (Network Address and port Translation) on the 
ones it allows thru.

For what it's worth, it can be configured to deal with a DSL 
failure by automatically falling-back to a standard 56-kbps modem 
line.  I found this to be a useful feature for a while when my 
cable modem was going flaky on me.  Eventually Optimum Online came 
out and fixed the cable connection, so I don't use that feature 
anymore -- but it was nice to have it when I needed it!

I've got some stuff on configuring a firewall box to give you the 
optimum mix of security from outside hackers and ability to access 
the net from inside.  Email me if you want a copy.

Rick

On Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 02:08 PM, KJC wrote:

>
> Can anyone suggest a howto page that will tell me how to connect my
> YDL 2.2 to SBC's external ethernet 'speedstream' modem?
>