Re: Cable modem/MetroX

[Paul Braman <braman tsc-corp com>]

On Sun, 10 May 1998, Bob Easton wrote:

> This is very human of your friend's cable modem service (which
> one?)  In my area, (Time-Warner RoadRunner, Southern Tier,
> N.Y.), they specifically disallow more than one computer per
> cable modem (unless you pay extra),  they disallow home-based
> web-hosting and don't give out static IP addresses.  You can
> probably hook up more than one computer via IP masquerading, but
> web-hosting is a little trickier.   Perhaps it could be done
> with a referral from an outside site that knows the up-to-date
> IP address (a little sneaky.)

Road Runner--and most cablemodem services--do not necessarily prohibit 
having more than one computer use the connection.  They simply prohibit 
more than one computer being directly connected to the cablemodem.  One 
computer with two interfaces can serve as a gateway and you can have your 
own little intranet connected via cablemodem.  Road Runner *does* 
prohibit running any services, but if you don't have that much traffic 
they probably won't notice.  It's only when you run massive archives and 
gaming servers that they tend to withdraw your account.
 
> I haven't yet installed cable modem support under Linux (just 
> Win95), so I can't give you specific info.

You don't really *install* cablemodem support.  Typically, when you 
purchase your account they send a service technician to your house to 
install an ethernet card which will hook directly to the cablemodem.  
(The cablemodem itself has a BNC ethernet port.)  You will then need to 
make sure you have ethernet support (and support for the particular 
card--typically a 3Com card) on your machine.  Routing needs to be set up 
for that particular interface as well.  This is all the normal stuff you 
do if you were to put any ethernet card on your machine and link up to a 
network.

The cablemodem service then requires a "login" program to be run to get 
your particular connection up and running every time you want to use it.  
For Road Runner's service there is a Linux port of this login program 
available.

Paul Braman
braman tsc-corp com