From: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk
A friend of mine, whose phone is already on an NTL line, has just had a cable modem installed by NTL for broadband via an NTL cable. The leaves them with the NTL CD awaiting insertion into their computer to initiate the setup and establish the broadband connection. So far so good.
Amazing coincidence. I am facing the problem that my daughter has just moved in with four others to student lodgings in a house with a freshly installed NTL cable modem, which is working well to the single XP machine that has been plugged into it and configured by NTL's CD.
I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to connect other machines, including my daughter's FreeBSD box, to it. Having now googled, I am sure I failed because the modem is tied to the MAC address of the first machine to connect.
It would presumably be in theory possible to set up ICS on the single working machine for the others to use - better from my POV to set up NAT on the FreeBSD box for the same purpose, with a wireless card to share the connection - but the physical constraints (lodgers not allowed to drill holes and my daughter's room being one floor above the hallway where the connection is) mean the only viable solution will be to upgrade the cable modem to a wireless router.
But NTL's website doesn't mention wireless routers.
Is there anyone with an NTL cable-connected wireless router?
If I buy a wireless router independently, is it easy to connect it to the cable modem in place of the current XP machine? Any recommendations on a suitable wireless device? Can I persuade the cable modem to accept the router's MAC address? Will the router, which presumably expects an ADSL input, be readily configurable to the cable modem's ethernet connection?
And what are the chances of me managing this operation by telephone from a hundred miles away?
Very many thanks to Paul for his comments and links too:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/cmtips/register.html http://www.chetnet.co.uk/articles/index.php?page=index_v2&id=60&c=14 Regards, Paul.
I have been browsing around them and related links. There are good "manual registration" instructions there, but these are four years old and I think I will still have the MAC address problem. Many assume the cable modem is handing out 192.168.x.y addresses, but the working machine had an address 81.106.210.x/24.
I did connect our BSD machine to it though a switch, configured it to an adjacent address and was then upset to find it couldn't ping the XP machine. Or the "defalt gateway". I now realise that the XP machine probably had a default firewall, bother it! And the router was probably not accepting the BSD machine's MAC address. Bother it!
Concerning Ted's contract reservations, isn't this sort of thing standard practice? The last time I read the small print on an airline ticket (flights can be very boring) I got the impression that they were under no obligation to fly me anywhere anytime. And NTL are welcome to inspect my BSD boxen as much as they like, they need both a wheel and a root password to get in.
On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Christopher Dawkins wrote:
From: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk
A friend of mine, whose phone is already on an NTL line, has just had a cable modem installed by NTL for broadband via an NTL cable. The leaves them with the NTL CD awaiting insertion into their computer to initiate the setup and establish the broadband connection. So far so good.
Amazing coincidence. I am facing the problem that my daughter has just moved in with four others to student lodgings in a house with a freshly installed NTL cable modem, which is working well to the single XP machine that has been plugged into it and configured by NTL's CD.
I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to connect other machines, including my daughter's FreeBSD box, to it. Having now googled, I am sure I failed because the modem is tied to the MAC address of the first machine to connect.
It would presumably be in theory possible to set up ICS on the single working machine for the others to use - better from my POV to set up NAT on the FreeBSD box for the same purpose, with a wireless card to share the connection - but the physical constraints (lodgers not allowed to drill holes and my daughter's room being one floor above the hallway where the connection is) mean the only viable solution will be to upgrade the cable modem to a wireless router.
But NTL's website doesn't mention wireless routers.
If you get something like the Netgear WGT624, you can make it spoof it's MAC address. Connect Netgear to cable modem, then PC's to the 4 internal ports, and via it's web interface you can make it spoof it's MAC address. I set up something similar for my Uncle (who's on Blueyonder), with the non wireless version of that router.
HTH
Chris Glover wrote:
[SNIP]
If you get something like the Netgear WGT624, you can make it spoof it's MAC address. Connect Netgear to cable modem, then PC's to the 4 internal ports, and via it's web interface you can make it spoof it's MAC address. I set up something similar for my Uncle (who's on Blueyonder), with the non wireless version of that router.
Been doing this for years. Set up the NTL cable modem with ethernet *NOT* USB, then hang a router off of that instead of a PC. I've used several, most recently a Linksys WAG54G for wireless, and a Linksys BEFSX41 for wired, but there's no reason any other (firewalling!) router wouldn't work.
NTL's network will never know or care what's inside that router. I've had all sorts of Linux firewalling/VPN kit with spoofed MAC addresses running. Our main line in here is a 2mb dedicated line, and the NTL cable (700mb) is used and has been running virtually flawlessly for at least 5 years with frequent kit swaps inside it...
Cheers, Laurie.
Laurie Brown said:
Chris Glover wrote:
[SNIP]
If you get something like the Netgear WGT624, you can make it spoof it's MAC address. Connect Netgear to cable modem, then PC's to the 4 internal ports, and via it's web interface you can make it spoof it's MAC address. I set up something similar for my Uncle (who's on Blueyonder), with the non wireless version of that router.
Been doing this for years. Set up the NTL cable modem with ethernet *NOT* USB, then hang a router off of that instead of a PC. I've used several, most recently a Linksys WAG54G for wireless, and a Linksys BEFSX41 for wired, but there's no reason any other (firewalling!) router wouldn't work.
NTL's network will never know or care what's inside that router. I've had all sorts of Linux firewalling/VPN kit with spoofed MAC addresses running. Our main line in here is a 2mb dedicated line, and the NTL cable (700mb) is used and has been running virtually flawlessly for at least 5 years with frequent kit swaps inside it...
I was just about to say the same thing, NTL won't know or care about what's connected, the only thing is that they won't 'support' you for more than a single connection, but unless you have trouble getting the DNS IPs you probably won't need support.
I had NTL cable in Cambridge when I was at uni, and we started off using an OpenBSD box for our NAT, then an Apple Airport (plugged the cable modem into the WAN port and away ya go).
Most recently, a few weeks ago my brother moved into his new house and got Telewest cable, we just got a Linksys WRT54G (the ADSL/Cable Router, not the ADSL Modem Router) and again plugged the cable modem into the WAN port (the diagram on the back of the box shows how simple it is.
The problem of it ties to the MAC address of the connected PC was a bit annoying when I first tried it at uni when we were trying new things on new machines all the time, but all you have to do is unplug the modem for a minute or so, then plug it in with it connected to the new machine.
Hope that helps Duncan
Duncan Sample wrote:
[SNIP]
Telewest cable, we just got a Linksys WRT54G (the ADSL/Cable Router, not
That's the one I meant! Of course, the WAG54G is the ADSL flavour and not at all suitable. Sorry to confuse...
Cheers, Laurie.
Amazing coincidence. I am facing the problem that my daughter has just moved in with four others to student lodgings in a house with a freshly installed NTL cable modem, which is working well to the single XP machine that has been plugged into it and configured by NTL's CD.
I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to connect other machines, including my daughter's FreeBSD box, to it. Having now googled, I am sure I failed because the modem is tied to the MAC address of the first machine to connect.
It would presumably be in theory possible to set up ICS on the single working machine for the others to use - better from my POV to set up NAT on the FreeBSD box for the same purpose, with a wireless card to share the connection - but the physical constraints (lodgers not allowed to drill holes and my daughter's room being one floor above the hallway where the connection is) mean the only viable solution will be to upgrade the cable modem to a wireless router.
But NTL's website doesn't mention wireless routers.
Is there anyone with an NTL cable-connected wireless router?
If I buy a wireless router independently, is it easy to connect it to the cable modem in place of the current XP machine? Any recommendations on a suitable wireless device? Can I persuade the cable modem to accept the router's MAC address? Will the router, which presumably expects an ADSL input, be readily configurable to the cable modem's ethernet connection?
And what are the chances of me managing this operation by telephone from a hundred miles away?
As mentioned by others you allow connection on other devises by simply unplugging power and ethernet. Replacing power, allowing the lights to stabalise and plug back in the ethernet cable connected to the correct devise.
I had my network managed using an dlink cable wireless router, simply case of plugging modem into router and away you go, cable and ethernet option.
If your daughter can use free bsd she should manage this fine.
Ben
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Ben Whyte -
Chris Glover -
Christopher Dawkins -
Duncan Sample -
Laurie Brown