Connecting to Shaw Cable

I wouldn't call myself a networking expert, although I have managed
to set up my own LAN with a mix of Linux, Windows and Amiga boxen,
talking to Telus ADSL through a firewall running OpenBSD. But
a neighbour got tired of fighting with Windows so I lent him my
Slackware 10.2 disks to see whether we could set him on a better
path.

The Linux installation went well, but I seem to have run into a
brick wall while trying to connect to his ISP, Shaw Cable. Shaw's
installation disk is very short on information: the procedure basically
consists of putting the disk into a Windows box and running the install
program; those with other OSes need not apply.

I took over my laptop (also running Slack 10.2) and a crossover cable,
and managed to get my box to talk to his through both of the NICs he
has installed - so I know his hardware is OK. (This was using static
IP addresses.) I tried plugging the CAT5 cable from his cable modem
into one of his NICs (and then the other) and running dhcpcd, but it
just sat there for a while and finally quit after writing "timed out
waiting for a valid response from DHCP server" to syslog. Presumably
one of the NICs has a MAC address that Shaw recognizes, since the box
was successfully connecting when it was running Windows. We did see
lights flicker a bit on the cable modem, and running ifconfig while
dhcpcd was trying to connect showed increasing byte and packet counts,
both receiving and transmitting.

Can anyone suggest where to go from here? I've already blown my
guru status, but it'd sure be nice if I could get my neighbour's
box onto the Internet using Linux. He doesn't want to go back
to Windows either.

--
/~\ (E-Mail Removed)lid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
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Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> I wouldn't call myself a networking expert, although I have managed
> to set up my own LAN with a mix of Linux, Windows and Amiga boxen,
> talking to Telus ADSL through a firewall running OpenBSD. But
> a neighbour got tired of fighting with Windows so I lent him my
> Slackware 10.2 disks to see whether we could set him on a better
> path.
>
> The Linux installation went well, but I seem to have run into a
> brick wall while trying to connect to his ISP, Shaw Cable. Shaw's
> installation disk is very short on information: the procedure basically
> consists of putting the disk into a Windows box and running the install
> program; those with other OSes need not apply.
>
> I took over my laptop (also running Slack 10.2) and a crossover cable,
> and managed to get my box to talk to his through both of the NICs he
> has installed - so I know his hardware is OK. (This was using static
> IP addresses.) I tried plugging the CAT5 cable from his cable modem
> into one of his NICs (and then the other) and running dhcpcd, but it
> just sat there for a while and finally quit after writing "timed out
> waiting for a valid response from DHCP server" to syslog. Presumably
> one of the NICs has a MAC address that Shaw recognizes, since the box
> was successfully connecting when it was running Windows. We did see
> lights flicker a bit on the cable modem, and running ifconfig while
> dhcpcd was trying to connect showed increasing byte and packet counts,
> both receiving and transmitting.
>
> Can anyone suggest where to go from here? I've already blown my
> guru status, but it'd sure be nice if I could get my neighbour's
> box onto the Internet using Linux. He doesn't want to go back
> to Windows either.
>
Well Charlie, did you try pulling the power cable out of the modem and the back
in so the modem would come up again? I just had to help my cousin to get his
computer going again after he moved from Manitoba to BC. I used a live Linux cd
to prove to myself his Shaw stuff was working and it did not till I powered down
the modem and then let it come on again.
I also am certainly no guru either.

--
Leo (Bing) Whiteway in Kelowna, BC, Canada: Ham calls: VE7UW and VE7OKV
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
< running Linux > http://www.linux-bc.com

I've been using Shaw for 6 years with quite a few Linuxes (Mandrake,
PCLinuxOS, CentOS, etc.)

All connect to the modem cable without any problem whatsoever, get an IP
and are up and going without any further problems.

So I would doubt the problem comes from Shaw. Something's wrong with your
setup...

If you need further help get in touch with me by email, see what we can
come up with...

On Wed, 24 May 2006 07:10:09 +0000, Leo wrote:

> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> [quoted text muted]
> Well Charlie, did you try pulling the power cable out of the modem and the back
> in so the modem would come up again? I just had to help my cousin to get his
> computer going again after he moved from Manitoba to BC. I used a live Linux cd
> to prove to myself his Shaw stuff was working and it did not till I powered down
> the modem and then let it come on again.
> I also am certainly no guru either.

In article <lFTcg.22003$zn1.19326@clgrps13>, (E-Mail Removed) (Leo)
writes:

> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> The Linux installation went well, but I seem to have run into a
>> brick wall while trying to connect to his ISP, Shaw Cable. Shaw's
>> installation disk is very short on information: the procedure
>> basically consists of putting the disk into a Windows box and
>> running the install program; those with other OSes need not apply.

<snip>

> Well Charlie, did you try pulling the power cable out of the modem
> and the back in so the modem would come up again? I just had to help
> my cousin to get his computer going again after he moved from Manitoba
> to BC. I used a live Linux cd to prove to myself his Shaw stuff was
> working and it did not till I powered down the modem and then let it
> come on again.

Thanks, that seemed to do the trick. I went back loaded for bear;
I built and installed Ethereal on his box and had it listening
as I powered up the modem - and, just to be sure, I tried running
dhcpcd by hand. Hundreds of ARP packets flew by, for all sorts
of addresses in the same /16 subnet. In addition, there were a
few DHCP packets with our own MAC address, and they looked good.
I checked /etc/resolv.conf, and lo and behold it had been properly
set up. And we were off to the races.

> I also am certainly no guru either.

Perhaps not, but you got us going. Thanks again.

> A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.

:-)

"Microsoft is not a necessary evil. Microsoft is not necessary."
-- Ted Nelson (paraphrased - he was referring to IBM in the '70s)

--
/~\ (E-Mail Removed)lid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!