Nick Clifford wrote:
> Anyways, after that preamble:
> I've been using a DSE router in Half PPP Bridge mode for awhile, and
> it works reasonably well, except every once and awhile the connection
> "drops"[1].
>
> So I've started thinking about an internal ADSL card for my server box
> here. I am aware previously there were numerous problems with internal
> cards, ranging from lack of stablitity in the actual connection to
> buggy and problematic drivers for Linux.

The biggest problem is the lack of open sourcing for PCI or USB modems,
this leads to drivers being released for specific kernels or
distributions and not being kept updated as things progress and the
modem is no longer in production.

DSE XH1148 usb adsl modem supports Mandrake 9.2, RedHat 9.0 and Fedora
Core 1.

Do you need to run your router in half bridge? Will DMZ suffice? Have
you considered an external modem/router that supports PPTP?

Is the connection dropping a problem with your line maybe rather than
the router? When I used to run in half bridge I'd get a 192.168.1.3
address if the router wasn't on the net - could this be causing problems
for your firewall setup if you've got an internal network also on
192.168.1/24?

> In my not some humble opinion; the router should be programed so that
> when its in half ppp bridge, it gives out DHCP responses for ANY and
> all requests, since 99.999% of users who use it in this mode plug
> directly into the router, so the "right" machine will be the only one
> sending requests out.

What 99% of users *intend* to do, may not be what they do.

Problem is if you've got a combo switch/router that won't always be the
case. There may be some machine that *shouldn't* send out a DHCP request
that does.

Its still got to conform to the DHCP protocol, or else its a bung piece
of equipment and will cause problems down the line. Standards should be
followed. Issue is, when its running in half-bridge with DHCP its got a
address pool of only 1 ip - should it release the DHCP lease? See if the
currently leasing machine is still around, if not then release? Or wait
for the lease to timeout?

I had two machines, both plugged into a DSE router running in half
bridge mode, the router did give DHCP responses to *any* and *all*
machines, unfortunately when both machines were using DHCP this meant
they were playing IP tag.

Sascha

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