Re: Cable Internet provider (Adelphia) system policies toward GNU/Linux
Quoting also.cute.and.fluffy@att.net <also.cute.and.fluffy@att.net>:
> My cable modem system seems to perform differently under M$ Windoze OS's than
> under *NIX-like systems (GNU/Linux, for example).
>
> I am a subscriber to Adelphia high-speed Internet (a.k.a. "Powerlink", but this
> is not the old one-way Powerlink that uses a phone line for upstream, but 2-
> way "full" cable broadband). I live in Western New York. My computer is
> configured to dual-boot both M$Windoze and Linux; and I notice a very
> interesting and unanticipated effect because of this. It pertains to IP address
> assignment; basically the Internet connection from Linux works *great*, but ...
>
> When logging in under the M$ OS, I always get the same IP address I've had for
> about a year or so. But when logging in under Linux, I get a *different* IP
> address, and what is more, I think it is a different IP _each_ _time_, not just
> a different one than the IP I get under M$Windoze. So, to put it concisely, my
> IP address although not *fixed* (guaranteed by the provider not to change)
> under Winblows, is *stable* over a long-ish period of time (weeks, months,
> maybe years). But under *Linux*, the IP I am given is both non-fixed (assigned
> under DHCP, as it is under Winblows), and also *non-stable*, i.e. it "floats"
> and is likely to be different each time I fire up the system.
>
> I haven't looked at the IPs I am assigned under Linux to see what range they
> span and if they are in a different range from those (that one, which
> is "stable") assigned under Winblows, but I have read elsewhere that my
> provider assignes from a "pool" of IPs that is different from the "WinPool", so
> to speak, to UNIX systems. This is odd. Does anyone know why they do this, and
> what characteristic of MS Winblows they might be keying-in-on, so to speak,
> that causes a "stability" to be achieved for the connection under Winblows,
> that isn't present under non-Winblows (Linux)?
>
> Thanks, all.
>
Part of the problem is that Linux doesn't know about the IP address
Windows has (it is stored on the client, not the server). If you can
find out what it it, you can probably edit it into the Linux DHCP client
leases file (probably called dclient.leases). Look in dhclient.conf
and bump the dhcp-lease-time up to something large. Try adding
another zero. If you do not use an IP address for a long time, the
lease will expire and the IP available for someone else to use. If
you use Windows for days and Linux for hours, I would expect the
pattern you are seeing. If you can keep Linux and Windows using the
same IP address, I would expect to keep it for weeks, if not months.
Since Linux can read most Windows filesystems, you could write a boot
time script to pull the IP address out of the Windows DHCP lease file
and put it in the Linux one. And do the reverse at shutdown.
HTH,
Jeffrey
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