setting up cable internet connection

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2004, Alimin Bijosono Oei <alimin_oei at myrealbox.com> writes:

> I am thinking of getting a broadband cable connection because this is 
> the only broadband connection available at my place. Just want to know 
> from others' experience how easy it is to set this up in Fedora? I 
> checked the internet configuration wizard tool, but couldn't see any 
> option for cable connection i.e. options available are CIPE (VPN) 
> connection, Ethernet connection, ISDN connection, Modem connection, 
> Token Ring connection, Wireless connection and xDSL connection. Are 
> there any issues with cable modem compatibility? I am living in 
> Australia and cable internet provider will be Telstra. I would really 
> appreciate any help provided. TIA

Others have already talked security, etc.  I have a separate firewall
machine (an old laptop) that is running two ethernets, one to the
cable modem to Comcast (a very big cable modem provider here in the 
states).  Comcast looks for a specific MAC address on the ethernet
card, and will only connect to that.  I dedicated a PCMCIA ethernet
card for the connection to them.  Comcast provides only a dynamic IP
address, which changes about every 6 months.   The separate firewall
is probably not strictly necessary if you have only one machine 
connected to the network, but it is still a good idea.  If you have
more than one machine, a separate single-purpose firewall machine and
two ethernets is close to mandatory.

Right now, I am doing an incorrect thing;  I have three domains
pointed at that dynamic IP.  They are registered with and controlled
through dyndns.org, so that if Comcast decides to change my address
I can  bring up the dyndns webpage and change the addresses.  Annoying
but livable.  This is incorrect because the Comcast terms of service
(TOS) forbids my running servers, and incoming SSH, SMTP, and HTTP
are responding to requests.  Theoretically, they could block these
ports tomorrow and I would have no recourse.

I am transitioning to the Correct Way.  A local company, pdxcolo.net,
rents User Mode Linux virtual machines for $20/month.  Over the next
month, I will be moving my services to the pdxcolo "machine", and
connecting them to SSH tunnels *outbound* from my firewall.  There
will be no incoming services to my firewall.  I will send most of my
outbound mail through smtp.comcast.net, not through pdxcolo, to keep
bandwidth through pdxcolo down.  There are some details omitted, but
I hope to describe those at www.keithl.com/comcast.html as I learn more.

Your details with Telstra may vary, but this should give you some ideas.
There is nothing specific about Fedora versus earlier versions of 
Redhat, beyond the details of configuring iptables.  It looks like
Fedora straight out of the box does a decent job of setup.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs