Wanadoo livebox - locked out of other ISPs?

Hihi,

I've just bought a Wanadoo Livebox, which I want not because I'm a
Wanadoo customer but because I think it's cute & natty-looking &
because it runs Linux. I intended to install this at my mother's to
give her a wireless connection, but it seems to be having some
problems, which lead me to believe that Wanadoo have locked it not to
allow connections to other ISPs.

I plugged it in, connected to its web interface & entered the username
& password for my mother's Homecall ADSL account - the ADSL status
shows as synced. but no authentication seems to take place and no "WAN
IP" is showed under configuration. I tried power-cycling the LiveBox
and re-entering the username & password, but no joy. I've used an ADSL
router at my mother's previously (I do PC stuff for a living & have
used her as a test-bed in the past!), and know that other routers work,
so I double-checked using the Alcatel speedtouch modem her ISP
provided. No problems there, I can surf the Internet fine, and even I
re-entered the password on her dial-up settings to ensure that it
matched the one I had been entering into the LiveBox.

This is where it gets interesting - I put the CD supplied with the
LiveBox into her PC & tried running the Wanadoo configuration software.
All went swimmingly until I went to enter her username & password - the
software rejected it saying that @homecall.co.uk "is not a domain used
by Wanadoo". :/

I was able to "continue anyway", and did so, but this turned out to be
the end of the installation. I then logged into the Livebox's
webinterface & tried again. Still no joy. The Wanadoo software gives an
example ADSL username in the format "some_user@fs", so I tried entering
that & an arbitrary password in the Livebox's setup and... Hey Presto!
The Livebox now announces an authentication error.

So the only conclusion I can reach is that the Livebox will not try to
authenticate over PPPoA unless the user has entered a username within a
Wanadoo domain. If this is the case, just think how upset Wanadoo users
are gonna be when they try to change ISPs in the future - they've spent
£80 on hardware, but they'll need to replace it!! This could very
conceivably happen should a user wish to move from a metered to an
unmetered service, say.

As I mentioned before, the LiveBox appears to run Linux - certainly
hidden away in /EN/Inventel/dwb/ is a reference to the GPL, and claims
that "the GPL source code contained in this product is available for
free download at http://www.inventel.com." The Inventel logo appears on
several of the LiveBox's configuration screens, incidentally, and their
corporate brochure [1] boasts that "thanks to their open platform that
embed a standard Linux operating system, our access points can easily
integrate new applications". Anyway, to try & download the GPL software
requires one to register (which is better than they were doing a couple
of months ago when, intrigued by the stunning good looks of a
customer's LiveBox I looked at the website to find they "only supply to
OEMs, please contact your supplier for new firmware"), and surprise,
surprise, the form on the website doesn't accept the product / serial
number from my Livebox.

Has anyone else had any problems or success using a Wanadoo LiveBox
with another ISP? Are there any possibilities I've failed to consider,
other than vendor lock-in? Whilst it would seem that Inventel are
making efforts to comply with the GPL, I would find it extremely
mean-spirited if its the case that Wanadoo are "network locking" their
router, especially since they appear to be using Free software to do
so.

Stroller.


[1]
http://www.inventel.com/data/_commer...rporate.en.pdf

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

: So the only conclusion I can reach is that the Livebox will not try to
: authenticate over PPPoA unless the user has entered a username within a
: Wanadoo domain. If this is the case, just think how upset Wanadoo users
: are gonna be when they try to change ISPs in the future - they've spent
: £80 on hardware, but they'll need to replace it!!

Excuse me - where does the £80 come from!?????

The Wanadoo T&C's (which I was looking at today for other reasons today) says

"If you have not previously ordered a Livebox from us, we will provide one (on
loan) at no extra cost, as part of the service. If we provide a Livebox and
you cancel the Wireless & Talk service you will need to return it to us in
the freepost envelope we send you."

Brian McIlwrath wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>
> : So the only conclusion I can reach is that the Livebox will not try
to
> : authenticate over PPPoA unless the user has entered a username
within a
> : Wanadoo domain. If this is the case, just think how upset Wanadoo
users
> : are gonna be when they try to change ISPs in the future - they've
spent
> : £80 on hardware, but they'll need to replace it!!
>
> Excuse me - where does the £80 come from!?????
>
> The Wanadoo T&C's (which I was looking at today for other reasons
today) says
>
> "If you have not previously ordered a Livebox from us, we will
provide one (on
> loan) at no extra cost, as part of the service. If we provide a
Livebox and
> you cancel the Wireless & Talk service you will need to return it to
us in
> the freepost envelope we send you."

You had me worried for a moment - I had to search to answer this & many
references I found do indeed refer to a free Livebox with a £4 talk
subscription - but then I found this
<http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/time/bb_wire1.htm?bbType=wifi>.

I was about to ponder whether that was an old offer, and whether
perhaps Wanadoo only locked their newer boxes, but it seems that on
page 4 <http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/time/bb_wire4.htm?bbType=wifi> it does
indeed state "Please note that your Livebox will only work with Wanadoo
Broadband". I'm sure that besides myself many of Wanadoo's customer's
will have overlooked this. Looks like it's time to grab a copy of the
firmware.

Stroller.

Stroller <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

: You had me worried for a moment - I had to search to answer this & many
: references I found do indeed refer to a free Livebox with a £4 talk
: subscription - but then I found this
: <http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/time/bb_wire1.htm?bbType=wifi>.


OK - had missed that one! Hopefully someone may know how to hack it.

BTW you may overestimate the advantages of this Livebox being Linux based!!

Most recent Netgear routers also are (see
http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101238.asp) *BUT* if one downloads
their "GPL code package" it does not include source (just binaries) for the
Netgear written executables which really run the router (just all the support
tasks and the Linux OS which provide their support environment)

Brian McIlwrath wrote:
> Stroller <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> BTW you may overestimate the advantages of this Livebox being Linux
based!!
>
> Most recent Netgear routers also are (see
> http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101238.asp) *BUT* if one
downloads
> their "GPL code package" it does not include source (just binaries)
for the
> Netgear written executables which really run the router (just all the
support
> tasks and the Linux OS which provide their support environment)

That's interesting - I wasn't aware that the Netgear downloads were so
skimpy. I guess it'll all depend on how much work Inventel have done of
their own, how much they've ported GPL tools & generally how nice they
are. I'd be quite happy for myself with a command-line interface, but I
don't like the thought that large chunks of essential utilities might
be missing.

The community work around the Linksys NSLU2 & related network attached
disk-drives seems very active <http://www.nslu2-linux.org/> and since
the LiveBox has an extra USB port in the back I wouldn't be surprised
to find that it could also accept an external USB hard-drive. I'd
consider it quite cool to have a device that does all-in-one ADSL- &
wireless-routing, samba & iTunes streaming server.

Stroller.

Stroller <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

: That's interesting - I wasn't aware that the Netgear downloads were so
: skimpy. I guess it'll all depend on how much work Inventel have done of
: their own, how much they've ported GPL tools & generally how nice they
: are. I'd be quite happy for myself with a command-line interface, but I
: don't like the thought that large chunks of essential utilities might
: be missing.

You *CAN* create a full router binary file from the Netgear sources and
packages build files).
It is the Linux tasks which they themselves have written to access their
specific (and proprietary) hardware chipset which are binary only (as the
GPL allows!)

Brian McIlwrath wrote:
>
> You *CAN* create a full router binary file from the Netgear sources
and
> packages build files).
> It is the Linux tasks which they themselves have written to access
their
> specific (and proprietary) hardware chipset which are binary only (as
the
> GPL allows!)

You're kinda confusing me here... I don't know what you mean by "Linux
tasks". Do you mean kernel modules? I have no problem at all with
building a kernel & loading in separate binary modules for things like
graphics cards.

Stroller.

Stroller <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

: You're kinda confusing me here... I don't know what you mean by "Linux
: tasks". Do you mean kernel modules? I have no problem at all with
: building a kernel & loading in separate binary modules for things like
: graphics cards.

Neither have I!!!

I went to look how Netgear do it. In their case there is a vital (user mode)
task called setup.cgi (ignore the .cgi - it's a compiled Linux executable)
which is called (with parameters) from the Web-based interface and which
sets and retrieves values deep in the router hardware. All of the static
web HTML pages are supplied in the GPL bundle but, without commented
sources of setup.cgi, one could not really alter how the routers works.

Brian McIlwrath wrote:
>
> I went to look how Netgear do it. In their case there is a vital
(user mode)
> task called setup.cgi (ignore the .cgi - it's a compiled Linux
executable)
> which is called (with parameters) from the Web-based interface and
which
> sets and retrieves values deep in the router hardware. All of the
static
> web HTML pages are supplied in the GPL bundle but, without commented
> sources of setup.cgi, one could not really alter how the routers
works.

Mean buggers! So if I'm reading this right, one can read from the
source of the webpages how they call the setup.cgi executable, but
figuring out how other parameters might work could be hard guessing?

Stroller.

In message <(E-Mail Removed). com>,
Stroller <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Mean buggers! So if I'm reading this right, one can read from the
>source of the webpages how they call the setup.cgi executable, but
>figuring out how other parameters might work could be hard guessing?

Am I being thick here, but can you not ftp the entire system down from
the router? Search it with an appropriate editor for the wanadoo
offending phrase, change it to something more appropriate and then ftp
back up? I have changed settings in routers before, something to do with
time servers or similar iirc. The procedure was well documented out
there though. Surely it can't be that different. Pound to a pinch of
sh!t that it is as simple as changing one line of text.
--
Pete Devlin
[{//////news03//////at\\\\\secondrow/////co\\\\\uk}]
"Mind the oranges Marlon!"