Hey, I want to use ADSL on an OpenBSD box, as I'm sick to death of Windows
using a PCI DSL card. I'm using Jetstart through Paradise.

I used to use Paradise cable, and I'd just configure an ip number and a
gateway address, add an entry to pf.conf for nat, reload pf, and enable ip
forwarding - and it was all go. Easy! But it's not quite so easy for ADSL
.. so I'm getting confused on how the best way to go about terminating the
connection on OpenBSD is...

I'd rather not use PPP under OpenBSD, as that's another process, more cpu
usage et cetera.

There's also the complication of going to a dynamic ip address..

>From what I understand I have two options available to me:
        1. Use dhcp on a DSL router, and dynamically change the IP address
           on the external ethernet interface to the IP address that I'm
           assigned, which the router can then bridge to me. This would
           mean I'd need a script to change pf.conf to the right IP address
           to NAT to I assume, and the same script could update DNS so that
           I can get outside access. (at the moment, I've just been looking
           at a ssh session that I've left connected, and seeing what IP
           number it's using; but this doesn't work when my IP address gets
           pulled from under my feet... which doesn't seem to happen quite
           as often as it used to)

        2. Do bidirectional NAT on the router, and use a separate IP address
           on the external interface that doesn't reflect my internet IP
           address. Would this mean I could even detect an ip change? Would
           I have to initiate connections every minute, and update DNS if my
           IP changes? I might be able to use syslog from a router, I'm not
           sure. Maybe I can even use snmp?

I'm not really sure which way is best. I'm thinking that bidirectional NAT
might actually be the cleanest way. (was there another name for this, too?
Oh, maybe it was static nat?)

>From what I gather I have two routers that I should consider:

        D-Link DSL-500, and some Dick Smith one that was $246 or $249 or
        something - the non-wireless one. Their web site won't load right
        now damnit.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the path that would be
best/cleanest/cheapest to take. The Dick Smith one is about $70 or so
cheaper .. so if it'll do everything cleanly then that'd be cool. I did
notice it doesn't have a serial port, but it does have a 10/100 4 port
switch built in. Whereas the D-Link had 10 Megabit single port ethernet.
100 Megabit is marginally better, of course. But still, there would be a
slight serialisation delay difference. Maybe the D-Link has a faster cpu,
or higher performance ppp implementation and gives lower latency anyway
though? I have no idea...

Or has anyone else got any unrelated ideas on the best way to go about
this? I want to use OpenBSD to do traffic shaping, and it'd probably pass
through tunneling, so that I can do compression, and not get in the way of
shaping. I could run multiple tunnels, to compress different segments of
traffic... and then just shape the compressed tunnel traffic.

Ben.

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