Re: Continuing internet oddities
* Russell L. Harris (rlharris@oplink.net) wrote:
> Patrick -
>
> From your bellsouth address and the fact that you have DHCP, I presume
> you are also have to contend with PPPoE. I suspect that PPPoE may be
> the culprit.
>
No, I have never had to use PPPoE before that I am aware of. Under
Slackware, in which I was more involved in the choices and so can tell
you more exactly, I would intentionally not install the PPPoE package
but just the dhcpcd one. The way things have always worked, after
installation, was automatic. During boot everything would be
connected and all the dhcp stuff with the router would be setup and I
could see this come across the screen and then bang, I was online.
The same is true here in Debian, except that nothing ever appears
onscreen or in dmesg and I can only tell if it has worked by trying to
use the connection.
> Unless you love to tinker, I advise you to do an end-run around the
> problem.
>
[snip]
> SmoothWall can act as a DHCP server for your local area network; or you
> may assign static IP addresses to the machines in your LAN. With
> SmoothWall as the gateway for your LAN, configuration of the machines in
> the LAN is simplified significantly.
I had thought about doing this initially, but decided that I would go
with a Linksys router as I figured it would use less power than one of
my old machines, and take up less space as well. It also allows me to
share my internet connection and has always done so automatically.
But, after this recent upgrade which somehow changed either my
configuration or installed packages everything changed. Unfortunately
as I have never been entirely sure what is going on with Debian behind
the scenes with DHCP or known exactly what was installed, as it
detected everything and installed it during the initial setup of the
system, I cannot be entirely sure what was there and is now gone or
different.
What is causing me the headaches right now is that it is basically
working. Most of the time I do get a connection when I boot, though
not always. But, after getting connected, most of the time that
connection just drops out completely leaving it useless. But, since
it connected in the first place, I really don't know where to look for
the failure. At least when it didn't connect at all I could mess with
things until it did, and so I knew I found what was likely causing the
problem. Now I don't really have that option, and so I am a bit lost
as to what to do about it.
Thanks for the help,
Patrick
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