[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux on AT&T cable

[Courtney Grimland]

I've had my cable modem (I live in Arlington) for about a year and a half (back when it was on @Home's network).  I use an old P166 with 32 MB of RAM as a gateway router/DHCP server/Squid caching proxy server and I've even set up a simple caching DNS server on this machine too (just to play with).  No problems.  Except for the 3 days we were down when they were moving everything over to AT&T's network, I haven't had a single minute of downtime.  There have been as many as 8 computers on the inside (4 right now) with no bandwidth/throughput issues.

The external interface plugs into the cable modem, and I have used both dhcpcd and pump as the dhcp client.  Both work fine.  With @Home, I had to specify '-h <hostname>' with pump (didn't use dhcpcd back then) using the hostname they assigned me.  AT&T doesn't require that.

Now, if I could only get a static address...  With @Home, my FQDN was <my hostname>.alntn1.tx.home.com, and it always resolved to the correct ip address (which never changed, by the way).  I had no problems accessing my router away from home when it was like that.  Now, my FQDN is <my-full-IP-address>.client.attbi.com, so I can't really get around the dynamic address thing like I could before, since technically I don't really know what IP address I have at any given time.  However, the address that I have has never changed since since I've been on AT&T, so I guess it's really no different than before.  Anyways, I'm rambling.

I did notice a bandwidth drop when we were moved to AT&T.  I used to consistently get 1.2 to 1.5 Mb/S (that was nice), and now I'm averaging .6 to 1 Mb/S.  Still pretty good for $40 a month.

All in all, I've been perfectly happy with my cable modem, and I wouldn't ever be able to go back to dial-up.

On Thu, 9 May 2002 21:35:55 -0700 (PDT)
Minh Duong <minh_duong at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Is anybody out there connecting with AT&T cable?  I
> want to create a home network with a linux
> firewall/router but I'm not sure if AT&T requires
> special protocols like NetBios in order to make the
> connection work.  I know that for a while @Home
> requied NetBios to keep track of the users because
> they didn't want to employ other means.  Since AT&T
> absorbed @Home users last year, they may be still
> using that technique.
> 
> Personally I always believed this was thoughtless. 
> Since cable is already somewhat insecure, using
> NetBios as an ID tag is like keeping all your doors to
> your house unlocked so that people looking for you can
> walk in and inspect it to identify you personally
> rather than looking at your street address.  But
> that's just my opinion.
> 
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