bugged me for ages - does bridge mode work on domestic ADSL?

Ages ago I used an old PC with IPCOP installed to connect via a VPN to a
client.

My static IP Demon ADSL service came through the wall and connected to a
Solwise SAR705 which was set to zipb mode. This is some sort of mode which
gets the IP address from the WAN port (in my case always the same one) and
then makes it available via its own little DHCP server to any device
connecting on the LAN port. It then seems to set itself into some sort of
half-bridge mode.

I had the RED port of the ipcop box connected to the LAN port of the SAR and
it was set to get its IP from DHCP.

This meant that the RED port was assigned the static WAN ip address assigned
to me by Demon.

Now Demon have obviously issued me with a username and password - but I
can't honestly remember if authentication was carried out by the SAR or the
IPCOP box.


Is this right?

In zipb mode a router/modem carries out the PPPoA authentication and then
passes on the WAN IP address and all traffic to an ethernet based router.
It then effectively becomes invisible and acts in a bridge mode.


And bridge mode - where I believe all traffic is simply passed through from
the phone line to the LAN port - does not work in most cases because the
ethernet based router which the traffic is passed to can not carry out
PPPoA authentication?


I do not need this to work currently as I am using double NAT via a Billion
BIPAC7100 for the ADSL connection and then a Netgear FVS318 to carry out
the VPN stuff.

Obviously, being able to assign the external (static) IP address to my
Netgear router WAN would make life slightly easier RE VPN's. Is this only
possible on domestic UK ADSL using a router which carries out zipb?

In which case - which common and reasonably priced router/modems have zipb
mode built-in?

Thanks for any clarification,

Kevin

>
>
> Is this right?
>
> In zipb mode a router/modem carries out the PPPoA authentication and then
> passes on the WAN IP address and all traffic to an ethernet based router.
> It then effectively becomes invisible and acts in a bridge mode.
>

This looks like the case.


>
>
> In which case - which common and reasonably priced router/modems have zipb
> mode built-in?
>

This appears to be a choice between the D-Link DSL-300T, the X-modem CE or
the Westell 6000 with the D-link being the most widely available.

I'll be getting a D-link to try it out.


> Thanks for any clarification,
>
> Kevin