mark
January 9th, 2005, 02:56 AM
Because I've become increasingly concerned about security (see my posts elsewhere about Firestarter), I broke down & bought the NetGear RP614 DSL router/firewall. NetGear's web site touted it as Linux compatible, I've had less-than-thrilling results with Linksys - it all looked good.
Let me say right now that my ISP asigns static IP addresses, which is fine - apparently until you start mixing in a router/firewall. I knew nothing of this...
Got it home, connected everything, fired it all up (per the NetGear documentation) and...no Internet. Discouraging. Went through all the troubleshooting stuff, no help...my "naked" DSL modem connected fine, with the RP614 in-circuit I got send but no receive.
Right - called NetGear's tech support line...went through a 10-minute wait, finally connected to someone that asked what version of Windows I was using. I explained that I used Linux & he immediately said, "Oh...would you hold on for a minute?" After somewhat more than a minute he comes back & says that, "Linux support is a different group" & gave me another toll-free number. Called that - and discovered it was for NetGear's "premium" (pay-per-call) support...and they were closed, being the weekend.
Finally, in desperation, I called my ISP (Speakeasy), on the off-chance they'd heard something about this. When I talked to Brice, he didn't have specifics about NetGear, but suggested that most routers "want" DHCP as opposed to static IP. I changed my configuration via (Computer>System Configuration>Networking ), rebooted and - eureka! - there it was! I then proceeded to log in to the router, do my basic configuration and now, all is well with the world.
I find it sad, though, that the hardware vendor has reached the point of referring Linux questions to their "SWAT" team, when the answer was so simple...
Let me say right now that my ISP asigns static IP addresses, which is fine - apparently until you start mixing in a router/firewall. I knew nothing of this...
Got it home, connected everything, fired it all up (per the NetGear documentation) and...no Internet. Discouraging. Went through all the troubleshooting stuff, no help...my "naked" DSL modem connected fine, with the RP614 in-circuit I got send but no receive.
Right - called NetGear's tech support line...went through a 10-minute wait, finally connected to someone that asked what version of Windows I was using. I explained that I used Linux & he immediately said, "Oh...would you hold on for a minute?" After somewhat more than a minute he comes back & says that, "Linux support is a different group" & gave me another toll-free number. Called that - and discovered it was for NetGear's "premium" (pay-per-call) support...and they were closed, being the weekend.
Finally, in desperation, I called my ISP (Speakeasy), on the off-chance they'd heard something about this. When I talked to Brice, he didn't have specifics about NetGear, but suggested that most routers "want" DHCP as opposed to static IP. I changed my configuration via (Computer>System Configuration>Networking ), rebooted and - eureka! - there it was! I then proceeded to log in to the router, do my basic configuration and now, all is well with the world.
I find it sad, though, that the hardware vendor has reached the point of referring Linux questions to their "SWAT" team, when the answer was so simple...