[geeks] Stoopid question re: cable ISP, modem, router bonding

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: James Fogg <James at jdfogg.com>
>Date: 2008/03/12 Wed AM 08:56:48 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Stoopid question re: cable ISP, modem, router  bonding

<snip>

>Yes, Comcast tracks MAC addresses. Most cable modems do by design, its
>part of the protocol they use on the cable side.
>
>I'm a Comcastian too, though I use smoothwall firewall on a PC.

I tried to set up a smoothwall router a few months ago, but I didn't have enough time to do it right and got frustrated. It never occurred to me to reset the cable modem after I swapped a Dell PC in for my WRT54GS/Sveasoft router. I swapped boxes and the link never came up, no matter how much I beat on Smoothwall. I had never really worked with anything resembling a "real" router before, so I simply gave up and put the Sveasoft solution back in place.

My problems with Sveasoft were that it required me to power-cycle the box about once every 4-6 weeks (it would stop giving out DHCP addresses and my wife's laptop would stop working - "Lionel, the Internet is down!"). If DD-WRT doesn't fix those problems (I think it will), then I'll consider trying another smoothwall deployment - now that I understand how it works ;^)

Lionel