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The current AT&T DSL and IPv6 solution
07/15/09
As I mentioned in my previous post about my attempts to get IPv6 tunneling going through my AT&T DSL connection, I had been on the phone with level 2 support at AT&T.
The support guy mentioned trying a 2-Wire 2701 DSL modem, since that modem allows much better control over the various options. Originally, I was skeptical, since the 2-Wire has an internal wired and wireless router, which is functionality I don't want nor need, since I have all that installed already with other devices.
In particular, I was concerned that the router would only give out private IP addresses to the machines behind it, and not, like the Speedstream 4100 and the Motorola 2210 did, assign the public IP address to one of the machines.
Once I learned that the 2-Wire allows assigning the public IP address to one of the computers behind the router, I decided to go ahead and get one on eBay. Now that I've had it for over a week, I am pretty satisfied. It indeed does what I want it to do, and seems to be one of the least crippled DSL modems out there.
4 comments
I ran into the same problem a few years ago. Normally, the Speedstream modem is configured to log in using PPPoE and then pass the public IP to the device it’s connected to. For some reason, in this mode, it blocks the protocol 41 packets. To get around the problem, you just have to put the Speedstream into bridged mode. The router or computer connected to the modem will now have to handle PPPoE, but all of the packets will come through.
Just thought I’d mention this so others who run into the problem realize they don’t have to go to the hassle of getting a new DSL modem.
Thanks for the info.
I did handle PPPoE on my Linux box a long time ago, when I had a metered ISDN connection. It was a PITA then, and that’s why I didn’t even try to do that.
But it is nice to know that in bridged mode, they pass everything through. So this seems to be a problem with a crippled PPPoE implementation on the Speedstream. I really hate crippleware…
I use the humble Speedstream 4100 as well. I have a “sticky static” PPPoE connection over AT&T DSL. It’s as close to a static IP as they will sell these days (unfortunately I had to move a few years ago, and lost my grandfathered true static IP at that time).
I’ve never trusted the built-in PPPoE on that modem. I have the modem set as dumb as it will go, in “bridged” mode. I use pppoe(8) on my Linux firewall box to create the “ppp0″ device that all traffic flows through. This leaves the modem’s original Ethernet device free for me to query directly, at 192.168.0.1 (or thereabouts), which is nice for gathering stats about the quality of the DSL line.
Seems to work great, I’m running a Hurricane Electric IPv6 tunnel through it now.
One problem with using ‘bridge’ mode on these modems is that they sometimes get reset to defaults by the provider. I think it happens whenever there are “a lot"(?) of line problems. So, personally, I’ve given-up on using bridge mode and instead I’m satisfied enough with the 2-Wire DSL/router I got from AT&T.
