Rogers@Home and FreeBSD - a chronology. (April, 2001) [so far, this has more to do with Rogers@Home than with FreeBSD. pk] -- The lead up: Installed FreeBSD on a surplus Compaq Deskpro 2000 (Pentium 166). Surfed Compaq's website to try to figure out how to change BIOS options. Compaq's website (http://www.compaq.com/support/files/) has everything I need -- documentation (PDFs), upgrade packs, maintenance packs, etc. Turns out BIOS changes can only be done via Compaq's own software. Urk. Luckily I still have a DOS partition so I'm able to build the set of DOS diskettes needed to boot the Compaq BIOS config program for my particular Deskpro model. -- Sign up for Rogers@Home via their website (start with "http://www.shoprogers.com/" and go on from there). Check off "self-install" Check off "other operating system" (ie. it's not Windows nor is it a Mac) -- Installer shows up on time and works quickly. Installer replaces the TV cable running into the basement from the cable box on the outside of the house. Installer puts a new splitter on the new cable and attaches the new cable modem on one side and reattaches the TV cable on the other side. Installer hands over the install sheet and installation kit and is finished. I connect the Deskpro's network card to the cable modem, configure the Deskpro to use DHCP and then have it start sending DHCP queries. No DHCP replies arrive. After some hours of reading web-search results (via PPP) and then re-reading the install sheet it dawns on me that they've given me a fixed IP address. Doh! Configure the Deskpro to use a fixed IP address. Still no joy. No traffic at all except for some occasional but regular IGMP packets. I keep toggling the Deskpro's FreeBSD config between DHCP and fixed IP until another lightbulb flashes -- the fact that IGMP packets are arriving must mean the Deskpro is properly connected to _something_. Call the Rogers@Home support number (I'd been holding off calling since I'm using an 'unsupported OS'. I wanted to be absolutely sure everything was working properly on my end before calling for help). Support guy checks around from his end and ... ... finds that router upstream from me is dead (non-responsive) ... he'll submit a trouble-ticket for it ... it should be fixed within 3-4 hours. Ok, cool. So it turns out I was messing around for no reason. Still, it wasn't a complete waste - I'm now a little better acquainted with DHCP configuration options (I think). But for now, the Deskpro is reset to used a fixed IP address. Try connecting an hour after the support call and bingo! success! (I guess they pad the repair times to cover themselves) -- Soon after installation (within a week), trucks start showing up every morning to do work on the cables around the neighbourhood. Hmmm ... I sign up for @Home service and now the area is crawling cable techs trying to tweak the lines. Coincidence? Hope so. If not, then on the bright side, it means I'm one of the first in the area to sign up and have yet to share the bandwidth with anyone else. One morning, one of these cable guys pounds on my door. Asks if he can put a signal filter on the TV side of the new cable splitter. Says the filter will help to ensure a clean signal for the cable modem. Ok, whatever. They continue to work in the area for a further week or so (I could usually tell when they were working because that's when my internet access would die). -- A fibre break. It's in all the news. Seems somebody tried to heist some wires (for the metal?) running along to the railway lines headed south to NewYorkState. They ended up breaking the only(?!) Rogers@Home link between Ontario and the rest of the world. It's a bit surprising that there's just the one line linking an entire province without any back up or 'sideway' connections. Just how vulnerable is that? -- Another line break. Same place. Seems some critters took to munching on the exposed lines which were being repaired after the original break. -- Get an email from Rogers@Home about an upcoming address renumbering. Those who were given fixed IP addresses should get ready to use DHCP. Ok, no problem - I'm now somewhat familiar with the DHCP setup on FreeBSD. But the email is a bit vague. I reply asking for more information (eg. Is there a rough schedule? Is there some basic technical information about their DHCP server configurations which might help me to configure my system properly?). Get a polite reply from Rogers@Home saying basically "sorry but we don't have any of that sort of information and we don't know really when the change will take effect." Ok, not a huge problem for me -- @Home access isn't absolutely critical (yet). I'm willing to spend some time mucking about. -- One day, out of the blue, I can't get anywhere. But I can still ping my upstream gateway. Hmmm. Call Rogers@Home support, thinking maybe it's another line break. No, it's not a line break (no pre-emptive message on the support line). Support guy reminds me about the IP renumbering announced a while ago. Oh, yeah, right, says I. Support guy notices that my customerID resolves to two IP addresses. Two? No kidding, says I. No kidding, says support guy. Says he'll send a trouble ticket about it and @Home should have things fixed in a few days. Oh great. DAYS, this time. Expecting to be offline for days, I configure the Deskpro to revert to using trusty old PPP to connect to the net. The next day, just for a 'look see', I configure the Deskpro to try to pick up it's new IP by DHCP. No replies. Again, the only traffic are those regular IGMP packets. Fart around with DHCP some more. Silence. Can almost hear crickets chirping. But now the wheels finally start grinding ... my customerID has 2 IP addresses. I configure the DeskPro to use the _other_ IP address and bingo! we're back in business. -- Judging by what I've gathered so far, it sounds like Rogers@Home is a kind of local retail storefront for the @Home service. The @Home service itself is actually operated entirely out of California(?). Rogers supplies the local phone support and, apart from the hardware itself, not much else. This realization is a bit unsettling but I'm not sure why. It partly explains why Rogers@Home has a somewhat spotty reputation: what's the point of offering phone support (other than providing a place to rant or a shoulder to cry on) if you don't have any control over where the bits'n'bytes go ... ? So far, for me the Rogers@Home experience has been a reasonable success. The local support staff have been pleasant and have tried to be helpful. And the access speed is pretty good. -- Hope this blurb helps someone else. pk. July, 2001 -- Nov 9, 2001. Some days ago Rogers surface-mailed a notice that they'd be switching to DHCP. Sure enough, a few days later, I was unable to get anywhere. So I ran dhclient and "it just worked" -- the default configuration as shipped with FreeBSD4.3 was all that was needed. And the first DHCP "lease" expired without any incident. So I'm happy. Interesting thing though - I ended up with the same IP address I had before having to use DHCP. Hmmm. -- Nov 24, 2001 Looks like Rogers is having serious problems rolling out their transition away from the @Home service. Apart from the rogershelp.com website, nothing else seems to be working: members.rogers.com is '404 forbidden' authorization to the pop server fails. the www server still points to home.excite.ca. Not only that, but they sent the new initial email password via email. Tsk Tsk. Guess they haven't read "password safety rule #10 = don't send passwords via email; you never know who might be able to read them." -- Nov 26, 2001 Finally found the location for signing in and changing passwords: www.broadband.rogers.com. -- Nov 27, 2001 Was finally able to login to the POP server and retrieve messages. So presumably it's safe to start using the "___@rogers.com" address. Was finally able to put files in the "webspace", too. I guess things are starting to fall into place at Rogers. -- Feb 12, 2002 It appears that Rogers' DHCP refresh rate has changed to hourly (it was being refreshed daily until Feb 7). No problem - FreeBSD's dhcpclient seems to have taken it stride. I hadn't even noticed until I spotted the new IP address in an unrelated log file. -- Feb 14, 2002 Sigh. I should've known. The DHCP changes seem to have been a prelude to more trouble. Now we're completely offline. And the tech support line has a message about DHCP servers being broken in some regions. Although our region wasn't mentioned specifically, we seem to have been dinged as well. According to my logs, DHCP service disappeared at approx 5am. The tech support guy said he'd log a trouble ticket and that I should call back in 24 hours to get an update. Fortunately, the modem still works. After being silent for 10 hours, the DHCP server reappeared. But this time my IP address is in the 65.x.x.x range and the DHCP refresh rate has returned to daily. If I had to guess, I'd say this was just more of Rogers' trying to disentangle itself from the old @Home service. -- Nov 10, 2003 Nothing to report. Since the last glitch everything has been working fairly well. Our DHCP-acquired IP address has changed only once or twice and dhcp on FreeBSD handled the changes without any problem. --