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The time now is Thu 23 May 2013, 06:25 All times are UTC - 4 |
 Forum index » Advanced Topics » Hardware » Networking |
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Motorola SBG900 wireless cable modem (Solved)
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Flash
Official Dog Handler  Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 9847 Location: Arizona USA |
I only started using this modem today. I'm using it with the ethernet connection, not the wireless, until I think I have it configured right. When I booted multisession Puppy Dingo 4 this morning it automatically connected to the internet via a DSL modem, which various Puppys have been doing without any problem for over a year. After a few hours I switched the ethernet cable to the Motorola cable modem and told Puppy's "connect" wizard to get a new IP address with DHCP. I didn't shut down the computer or reboot Puppy before I switched modems. It worked and I was back online via the cable modem within a few seconds. I logged back into my Yahoo mail and checked the Puppy forum, then left for a while. When I came back, the browser would not renew any web page or connect to a new website. It just sat there spinning until it timed out. The browser started working again when I told the connect wizard to get a new IP address with DHCP. This has happened several more times since. Can anyone explain what's going on? I don't believe the modem is losing the connection with the ISP, I think Puppy, or SeaMonkey, is somehow losing the connection to the router. I've poked around in the router (gateway, as Motorola calls it) configuration but can't find anything that looks like it might be the cause. I called Motorola tech support. The guy I talked to had at least heard of Puppy Linux, but he doesn't have any idea why this is happening. Neither does Cox technical support. 
Last edited by Flash on Sun 25 May 2008, 13:54; edited 1 time in total |
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nipper
 Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 150 |
Here is something for you to consider. On broadband connections, ISPs often tie the DHCP to a specific MAC address. with just a "modem" when your box asks for IP it does so with the MAC of your interface card. Gateways (modem, NAT router combinations) have their own WAN (outward, Internet) interface with it's own MAC. In theory, when time comes to renew the lease, the gateway tries with its own wrong MAC (wrong in the list that the ISP server has for that account) and thus it does not receive the new lease. Have you noticed any consistency to loss of connection, could it be expiry of lease time? When your box asks for the lease, it sends the correct MAC (in the list). If this is the case there are two ways to correct. Call the ISP and deal with what is usually inept assistance or just refusal because they don't support Linux, or look in the router configuration for a place where you can select to "clone the MAC" (or something like that). Doing that lets the router spoof the MAC of your box that your ISP has on record for you. |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 9847 Location: Arizona USA |
Thanks for your reply. Naturally I forgot to mention in my original post that I had to tell Cox cable (my new ISP) the MAC address of the modem before it would connect to the internet. Last night I e-mailed Motorola technical support, with a link to this topic. The good news is, I got a reply today; the bad news is, it was completely useless boilerplate. I doubt that whoever answered even bothered to read what I wrote. I have Windows 2000 installed on this computer. I guess I'll have to risk connecting it to the internet, to prove that the problem only occurs with Puppy. I can see that this is going to take a long time, if it ever gets solved. 
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nipper
Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 150 |
That is something you can test. The gateway will have a LAN interface IP address, this is the gateway IP and you can try a ping to it to establish if you are still connected. That could help you isolate the loss of connection further and prove your theory. Often one can see a lot by watching the lights on the interface cards and gateway. For example, does it still show a WAN link when you can't connect from Puppy? The only other thing which has occurred to me so far is that somehow your system loses the nameserver address and needs a pump to reassign it but I can't think of a way for that to happen. It doesn't seem likely. Have you tried to surf with IP addresses rather than domain name? I have seen gateways which have a setting to pass or not pass DNS information through but I'm not familiar with the particulars of that and I've only ever tried enabling that, don't know what would happen if it's disabled. |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 9847 Location: Arizona USA |
Thanks, I'll try that.
I think all the lights stay lit all the time, even when the browser just sits and spins. I'll pay close attention at noon. Here's another clue: the connection seems to drop if I don't do anything online for a while. It stays up as long as I'm doing something online. This morning I left the computer on but idle for less than an hour while I walked my dog. When I returned, I had to tell the connect wizard to get an IP address before the browser would refresh the Puppy forum page.
Well, all I have to do to get back online is "refresh" my IP address with DHCP. |
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nipper
Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 150 |
Well, if the light on the port for your wired connection stays on, that is supposed to indicate a link (connection), is the light on the ethernet interface of your computer on too?
OK, so it does seem to be periodic, one possibility that we haven't explored is the lease time for your LAN optioned in the gateway. It might be interesting to compare the lease time and the amount of time the connection stays up. It should renew the lease automatically though. It might be interesting to also compare the lease times for the connection to the ISP in the gateway to see if the "period" of your dropped connection compares to this lease time.
Some time before you do that refresh do an ifconfig -a to see the interfaces in your computer. We can check if it still has the IP address. The lights on the gateway can show you quite a bit. For example, if you make a request to refresh the forum page, you should be able to see the link light (for your connected port) blink (data transmission) and very soon the WAN would blink too on a working connection. With luck you might be able to tell visually how far your request is getting. Another method could be to try to get to the gateway setup pages while the connection won't surf, that could prove your connection between the gateway and your machine and once at those pages you can check to make sure the gateway still has an IP assigned from your ISP. One thing I'd like to do at this point is try another computer on this setup to see if it behaves the same or differently. I know that isn't always possible. |
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 9847 Location: Arizona USA |
Yes. As far as I can tell, the lights stay the same all the time, except the PC/activity light on the modem flickers when the light on the computer flickers. This computer has no light on the ethernet port, only one idiot light that flickers to let you know that the computer is doing something. Or not. 
Here's some info I copied from the gateway's configuration when it wouldn't refresh webpages:
Yes, the "PC/activity" light on the modem flickers when the light on the computer flickers.
See the above from the gateway configuration screen. If that isn't enough, there's lots more where it came from. 
It seems to me that the problem is in Puppy, perhaps is a subtle mismatch of the settings between the gateway and Puppy's TCP/IP control. I have no idea where to look for that, or what to do with it if I find it. I assume it's in the kernel somewhere. Of course, I'm probably going to be like the guy who overhauled his engine only to discover that the car wouldn't start because the gas tank was empty. 
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Flash
Official Dog Handler Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 9847 Location: Arizona USA |
I think the problem is solved. It seems that the firewall in the Motorola SBG900 is so poorly thought out as to be worse than useless. I did the procedure recommended here (only without rebooting anything):
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mikeb
 Joined: 23 Nov 2006 Posts: 4378 |
Yo ..I do believe you just solved a problem for me...timing out on wireless... I reserved addresses for all the wired machines which don't timeout when idle off to try it out cheers mike |
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Motorola SBG900 wireless cable modem (Solved)
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