Hacking the Actiontec 56k Modem/Gateway

william_lorenz writes "The Actiontec Dual 56k External Modem is an inexpensive device with a built-in 56k modem and two Ethernet ports that can be used as an Internet gateway of sorts. What's great about it is that it runs some form of uClinux, it's easily hackable, and Greg Boehnlein of the Linux Users Group of Cleveland and NOOSS fame recently contributed a detailed report on his findings! Pictures of the board are also available here, here, and here. Lots of specific details are included in Greg's article, and there's been some further discussions about this on the LUGC mailing lists."

Comments

56k gateways

[Sir Haxalot]

are almost pointless, a 56k connection is bad enough without it being shared across several computers.

Re:56k gateways

[mackstann]

Two ethernet ports + linux + easily hackable = who cares about the modem jack?

Re:56k gateways

[BrokenHalo]

I suppose lots of people are out of range for broadband, but plugging 2 computers into one 56k connection would seriously try my patience.

Re:56k gateways

[Koos Baster]

True. But I suppose it could be usefull when the computers are used mutually exclusive. Another use would be to connect the computers to each other, as a kind of a NULL modem Hub.

Re:56k gateways

[zakezuke]

56k is better then nothing. Keep in mind also the fact that primarly text information gets compressed unlike in broadband technologies. Keep in mind that many a small business or small remote office doesn't nessicarly need lots and lots of bandwidth just to get e-mail.

Hackability? Well I'm somewhat curious what they can do with such a device. The first thing that comes to mind is a standby gateway that goes online when the primary gateway fails. This would be MOST handy.

Re:56k gateways

[MadX]

Hmm .. perhaps in your country. In South Africa, this is basically the standard .. sure you have ISDN / ADSL ..
BUT

ISDN - very expensive to start with (+- R2000-00 initial startup @ R 7.50 / $1) then you still pay for the call charges. If the config goes haywire you can end up with a bill of R 4000-00/month.
ADSL is only available in certain areas - but there is a 3gig monthly cap. some guys can go through that in a day if they wanted to, and the service is being oversubscribed so quickly that the transfer rates are becoming dysmal. The only advantage is the 24x7 online connectivity (although they say that this is not guaranteed)

So most subscribers pay for 56k access (and we do pay for every local call made)

Maybe once the monopoly is broken (ie: SNO) there will be some sort of relief for the south african public ..

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

A NATted LAN is certainly better than nothing when you're sharing a house with multiple machines. Yes, it's slow if two people are using it at once, but it also means you don't need a modem in each box, don't need to risk someone else trying to dial out with another machine while you're already connected, someone can sneak in a quick Google or mail-read around your activity (or, in my case, I could stay on IRC while others browsed to their hearts' content)... ...But most importantly, it's a dramatic convenience when working with *NIX machines, and other software/projects that assume use in a LAN environment. Yes, you *can* net-install OpenBSD overnight on a 56k link - but you'll need to be ethernetted to do it, since they didn't fit ppp on the install floppy.

Now, I can see some vague utility for this hardware in the SOHO market, though I can't tell if it's configured for same by default (the marketing and 'modem' branding suggests not):

A lot of small businesses rely on DSL or Cable shared through a simple Linksys, but should there be an outage, their LANs are dead in the water. With a modem *in* the dinky embedded router, they'd have the option of falling back to dialup rather than closing up shop or waiting for their MCSE to get to dealing with it. With the appropriate firmware load, one of these things could provide fully automatic failover - and "failback" when it detects the DSL or cable has returned.

Many businesses I've met have been confused into paying for a full unused phone line/number 'beneath' their DSL anyway, so this would improve their uptime without adding to their costs. True, the same could be done with a dedicated *NIX machine, or even Windows ICS, but not everyone has technical staff on hand, and it'd be cheaper to have a contractor drop in $100 of 'foolproof' hardware once than stay on-call for care-and-feeding of a less "embedded" solution.

Re:56k gateways

[screenrc]

I have worked on such uClinux gadgets (for pay); although I have not bothered to read about this product, it should be safe to make these observations:

1. Two posts only? That is not very useful at all. You probably need a hub as well.

2. uClinux is not readily hackable, at least until you drift of it, and also know how to recover when this thing freezes. You can not just dive into it as if it was a linux PC.

3. The modem is probably the *best* part, but that has been done for many, many years. Nothing special.

If this thing had more than 2 eth ports, it could be useful; but, I would rather have it wirelss.

Re:56k gateways

[EnglishTim]

It's actually not that bad. I spent a few months sharing a 56k connection with a housemate once - we had an old (and rather noisy) PC with Linux as a gateway. Okay, it wasn't blazingly fast, but we did quite successfully manage to both play Unreal Tournament online at the same time, which I was quite impressed by.

Currently I have a broadband router connected to my cable modem - it has a serial port at the back which I keep connected to my old modem - it's useless most of the time, but damnned handy when something goes wrong with the cable connection (which happens about three times a year)...

Re:56k gateways

[gr0ngb0t]

similar deal here in australia, where we have a nutjob Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts who thinks that pornography is one of the major reasons why there's been a high take-up rate (of broadband) in South Korea and uses this (and a belief that kids only want broadband access to play games) as a reason to not fund, or agitate for, improved broadband access here in Australia.

You pay through the nose for a shitty service, and until they fix that, both in price and reliability, I'll stick to abusing my work bandwidth and stay with the trusty old agravatingly slow, but unlimited bandwidth, 56K dialup for home net access.

At least with a dialup deal, I can set up bulk downloads of whatever (no i'm not a p2p junkie) and leave the auto-redialer on to re-connect when i get disconnected. i'd rather that than have to pay A$80+ for a decent home broadband connection.

Re:56k gateways

[Jason1729]

If you're doing big downloads, 56k is already painfully slow, so this will only make it worse.

For typical websurfing you spend most of the time reading a page and a small portion loading new pages. It seems like both users downloading a new page at the same time will only happen occasionally, so most of the time, they can share the 56k connection without even noticing.

On the rare occasion where both users do load a page at the same time, it's still working at half speed, so it's not a major problem for how uncommon it is.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:56k gateways

[ls -lR]

Wow. That really sucks. Maybe some kind of DIY wireless net could offer a decent connection...

Re:56k gateways

[Detritus]

I used to use a 3COM 56K LAN Modem for Internet access. It was very convenient. All of my computers were on a local Ethernet. The 3COM box was a DHCP server and router, and it dialed my ISP on demand.

Some people are spoiled. 9.6 kbps used to be a high speed data line that required a $10K modem and 56 kbps was a very expensive wideband data line.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not a modem sharing thingy! this is a cheap single board computer that runs linux, has two ethernet ports and a modem, probably some other digital/serial io. (boxed, with psu, etc) that runs linux!!! perfect candidate for a web thermometer, ethernet garage door opener, robot brain, home weather station controller, etc.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, a great post from someone that has English has a fourth or fifth language, or maybe from someone either drunk of his ass, or too damned lazy to spell check and use correct grammar.

Re:56k gateways

[nettdata]

are almost pointless, a 56k connection is bad enough without it being shared across several computers.

Almost, but they still have their uses.

I was the IT Manager for Lilith Fair, and when we sent the tour buses out on the road, 2 of them were dedicated accounting buses with LANs, printers, etc. We couldn't be guaranteed any kind of broadband connection at our stops, but we WERE guaranteed just about as many POTS lines as we could handle.

We set up two similar devices, one on each bus, and they were very simple for the non-technical accountants to use. It should also be mentioned that each device had 2 56k modems in it, and they attempted to do some sort of load-balancing or connection "stickiness" to take advantage of the dual connections.

They were perfect for sending and receiving emails, and even remote-faxing. We also used the same connection to synch up a couple of Oracle databases.

We quite liked them. (They weren't the same devices mentioned, but quite similar).

Re:56k gateways

[gl4ss]

well.. one use jumps to my mind..

2 _ports_(theres more than 2 posts in this thread anyways too).. hmm.. where i have seen 2 ethernet ports lately.. oooh! in my firewall+nat machine!

yeah, so that is a possible use provided that they've hacked it far enough(of course i didn't read the article).

-

Re:56k gateways

[hazem]

This machine would be perfect for my parents. They have 2 computers and a 56k-dialup account. They want to somehow share the connection with both computers.

Plus, that firewalling can only help protect them from some of the various attacks by worms and such.

As you said, I could install a linux box, but mom & dad don't want a linux box sitting there, running all the time, waiting for them to want to go online.

Re:56k gateways

[Daniel Phillips]

are almost pointless, a 56k connection is bad enough without it being shared across several computers.

Oh, you won't be able to surf your pr0N, but it's good enough for email and irc, when your broadband goes down (it happens, and chances are, your POTS will still be there).

But that's not the point. The point is, you can run your own code on this thing. One application I've always wanted: a fanless unit sits on my dsl connection, always on, waits for me to connect from overseas, say, and powers up my server with wake-on-lan.

Re:56k gateways

[WindBourne]

what device did you use? where they network stand alones? how did they perform? and yeah, I am looking for these for exactly the same reasons ( I have been playing with the actiontec for the last week).

Re:56k gateways

[Jo Owen]

But to be realistic, porn probably _is_ the biggest reason for the uptake of broadband.

Re:56k gateways

[Daniel Phillips]

2. uClinux is not readily hackable, at least until you drift of it, and also know how to recover when this thing freezes. You can not just dive into it as if it was a linux PC.

You have never worked on any embedded system, for pay or otherwise.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

$20 dialup + $20 Phone-line rental + $20 calls = broadband is cheap

How many days does it take you to grab anything that is a couple of hundred megs or more? I get an ISO from aarnet in under 20 mins ;)

Re:56k gateways

[L10N]

Wow, a great post from someone that has English has a fourth or fifth language, or maybe from someone either drunk of his ass, or too damned lazy to spell check and use correct grammar.

Pot...Kettle...Black...

Re:56k gateways

[arpy]

It's even more painful when you try it like our office did for several years -- nearly two-dozen people sharing a single 56k dial-up using Win 98's ICS. It was painful. Really, really painful.

(Previously we'd had two 56k connections between us all, except the connection sharing program we were using/Windows couldn't cope with more than one gateway on the network most of the time. I'm still in therapy.)

Re:56k gateways

[golgotha007]

I spent a few months sharing a 56k connection with a housemate once

2 people, that's not too bad. here in Saint Petersburg, Russia, we have 3 apartment buildings with cable stretched between them. altogether, we have 29 users online all sharing a single 64k connection.
i've setup iptable accounting chains to 'see' who the abusers are, but haven't yet figured out how to do shaping or throttling.

we prefer to get DSL, but with DSL we have to pay 5 to 8 cents per megabyte (yes, we pay in American dollars for things like this and rent).

i am very jealous of places like Sweden where you have most apartment buildings hooked up with fiber and internet access of 3 to 10 mbps, with unlimited traffic!

Re:56k gateways

[dreamchaser]

I know that others have disagreed, but I had to add my ten cents. It is not worthless. A lot of people seem to forget that the vast majority of people do not have broadband yet. Until we were able to get it I used a single 56k line to share with my family. For web browsing and email it worked, though I'd usually disconnect everyone else when I wanted to play Quake.

No, it isn't very fast and the latency is rather high, but it isn't at all pointless. It works quite well actually.

Re:56k gateways

[afidel]

shotgunned 56K connections would be a GREAT backup solution for many small/medium offices or businesses. I go around doing system upgrades at facilities like this all the time and most of them have a single broadband connection with no backup. What happens when their POP goes bellie up or their broadband ISP screws something up? They are hard down. With a 112Kb backup connection they could continue to work, sure you wouldn't want to download the multimedia training film that day but at least they could access all of the resources they need to to get most of their job done.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. I share a 56k connection everyday because that's the only affordable connection in this part of the country. Its not too bad unless you want to suck down iso images or such. There are ways to help the process too, like caching nameservers and http proxies.

It just seems to be a simpler solution to get an old Pentium based desktop out of a closet/yard sale/dumpster, slap a modem and NIC in it and hook the appropriate wires to it. Besides running NAT/firewall, proxies and DNS you can also setup hylafax and a BBS or pppd to answer the phone.

Re:56k gateways

[Daniel Phillips]

ISDN - very expensive to start with (+- R2000-00 initial startup @ R 7.50 / $1) then you still pay for the call charges. If the config goes haywire you can end up with a bill of R 4000-00/month.
ADSL is only available in certain areas - but there is a 3gig monthly cap. some guys can go through that in a day if they wanted to, and the service is being oversubscribed so quickly that the transfer rates are becoming dysmal. The only advantage is the 24x7 online connectivity (although they say that this is not guaranteed)

So most subscribers pay for 56k access (and we do pay for every local call made)

That pretty much describes the situation in Germany, up until two years ago. Barbaric. The weird thing is, the locals just never understood how badly Deutsche Telekom was abusing them until broadband came along and made it perfectly obvious how far the country was going to fall behind if things didn't change fast.

Local calls still carry toll charges, it's so stupid, as if the bandwidth needed to carry a voice call actually cost anything measurable these days. It's also still pretty much impossible to get flat rate 24/7 dialup access, as Canada has had since about 1995. So if you aren't in an urban area, you are still a digital hillbilly, you connect to the internet only on special occasions.

Re:56k gateways

[mrjb]

I suppose you could hook it up to a cable modem via ethernet, home PC on the other ethernet and use the modem for dial-in access?

Re:56k gateways

[R2.0]

These little devices do have their uses. I have a 3com Office Connect 56k which is a 4 port hub and 56k modem. It connects my machine (Home/experimental/upstairs) and my wife's (home office/separate business/downstairs).

Its utility lies in the fact that 90% of the time, only 1 person is working, so the live machine gets the full bandwidth.

The other 10% of the time, we can go on line without stepping on the other's connection. Sure, it's slow, but not slower than " *&^$WTF? Did you just kill my connection? Sorry."

Re:56k gateways

[Fesh]

Even if it is, it's followed closely by gaming. Especially in South Korea. I know better CounterStrike pings were the big factor in getting me signed up.

Re:56k gateways

[Large Green Mallard]

You're also IT manager for Lilith Fair? :) or should s/exactly/very similar/?

Re:56k gateways

[tomstdenis]

I call 12yr old liar.

I grew up in the 2400/9600 modem days and they didn't cost $10K. Maybe 30 years ago....

I recall buying my "high speed 14.4" modems for my Renegade BBS for like 60$ each [or something] when I was 12.

Also 56kbps didn't exist until very recently [90s] so it wasn't even an option for "those with alot of money" prior to that [unless they had an ISDN line which was 64 not 56]. The only 56kbps link I know of prior to the 90s was done by amateur radio links [packet radio]

Go back to school chump, leave the nostalgia for those who actually lived through it.

Tom

Re:56k gateways

[Effugas]

A little humility, Tom? :-) There are some people who've been in this game even longer than we have.

You actually haven't lived through it all. Neither have I. (Backstory: Tom and I are friends.)

What he's referring to is Frame Relay -- the method by which X.25 networks (telenet/tymnet, for the Delphi/Source/Compuserve/GEnie folks of the mid 80's) propogated their traffic, and ultimately the way most nationally dispersed data centers exchanged their data. Those networks didn't run on modems per se (they didn't convert signals into something that ran over POTS), but the converters that interfaced local hardware to the telco's 9600bps line could almost certainly cost $10K -- it's a simple matter of small market, large investment in R&D, and, oh yes, a monopoly too :-)

CSU/DSU's for T1's aren't cheap either, even with SDSL modems running a couple hundred dollars.

Incidentally, this isn't even a thing of the past. It turns out 56K Frame Relay links live on. I know of a _massive_ corporation that links most of its stores to the central mainframe via 56K FR links. Why? Because It Works.

--Dan

Re:56k gateways

[tomstdenis]

"frame relay". Sounds made up. I call 12 yr old kid!

fortunately I'm still right. The topic was about off the shelf voice band modulated modems. If you had to get a special digital line that's hardly what we're talking about [hence my reference to ISDN]

An off the shelf 9600 baud modem never cost $10K even when they were new.

Tom

Re:56k gateways

[DickBreath]

this is not a modem sharing thingy! .... perfect candidate for a web thermometer, ethernet garage door opener, robot brain, home weather station controller, etc.

There are less subversive uses than the ones you suggest. You forgot...

• War dialer
• Packet Sniffer (runs, say dsniff all day, occaisionally sends list of sniffed passwords to somewhere via. IRC) that can be hidden in suspended ceiling

There are also Trojan Horse uses. It could be passed off as doing it's primary function to a small business owner, but in reality it has additional unadvertised functionality.

How many more good uses can you think of for a Linux computer with a built in moadem and two ethernet ports?

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

The first thing that comes to mind is a standby gateway that goes online when the primary gateway fails. This would be MOST handy.

Doubtful. How do you control the active gateway? You think thins thing support HSRP?

No, in the real world, where we get paid to set these things up, the standard config is a Cisco 1721 with a T1/E1, or second ethernet WIC to DSL or cable (ADSL WICS are evil, and cause endless problems, especially with the fingerpointing when the circuit is down), and the dial backup is a USR courier/sportster connected to the AUX port. You can dial into it to see what's going on if need be, and it is set to dial out to somewhere else if it detects the primary WAN transit down.

There is no place for a second device. Its just asking for more problems.

Re:56k gateways

[Sleepy]

>>2. uClinux is not readily hackable, at least until you drift of it, and also know how to recover when this thing freezes. You can not just dive into it as if it was a linux PC.

>You have never worked on any embedded system, for pay or otherwise.

Be nice. I think what the author says is true... from the average Linux hacker's perspective, an embedded platform is NOT readily hackable.

Plus he will have no documentation from the manufacturer. The manufacturer likely modified uClinux and possibly BusyBox in some undocumented manner, to "save space".

I just finished a project where I added some CGI GUI's and a dynamic DNS client to a webcamera with embedded Linux. I couldn't have done it if it was not Linux inside, but it was a bear. When you don't know "what works" on an OS variant, trial and error gets old real fast...

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

A lot of small businesses rely on DSL or Cable shared through a simple Linksys, but should there be an outage, their LANs are dead in the water. With a modem *in* the dinky embedded router, they'd have the option of falling back to dialup rather than closing up shop or waiting for their MCSE to get to dealing with it. With the appropriate firmware load, one of these things could provide fully automatic failover - and "failback" when it detects the DSL or cable has returned.

How, how how! People keep saying this like it's a trivial thing to do. It's NOT. You don't just "detect" this stuff with some POS device. Most likely, you'd need a default gateway in FRONT of both of your devices monitoring them and changing it's default gateway because I'm sure neither the Linksys they got form Staples or this POS support HSRP or similar.

Yes, I know this is a concept that just sounds like it should work. But in reality, it's just not that simple.

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

Incidentally, this isn't even a thing of the past. It turns out 56K Frame Relay links live on. I know of a _massive_ corporation that links most of its stores to the central mainframe via 56K FR links. Why? Because It Works.

While I'm sure you are aware of it, I doubt many others are: 56k frame and 56k analog dialup are fantastically different in actual performance. A 56k FR has very low latency, which makes interactive apps (like telnet and SNA crap, the bulk of the traffic I see still going over these links) very much usable. Try that with a modem and the latency makes it very difficult to tolerate with multiple users.

Re:56k gateways

[Detritus]

You should do a little research before you call someone a liar. Yes, you could spend $10K, or more, on a 9.6 kbps full duplex modem for voice grade lines. These were rack-mount commercial modems used in early data networks. You wouldn't find them in a neighborhood store. That was in the mid 1970s. Computer hobbyists were still using Bell 103 300 baud modems with acoustic couplers. To get 56K, you needed a special modem that used a group of 12 voice channels in a FDM (frequency division multiplex) system. FDM was an analog system used to transport multiple voice lines before PCM replaced it. It was used with the microwave relay system that used to cover the United States.

Re:56k gateways

[evilviper]

I call 12yr old liar.

Before you start calling people 12-year-olds, I suggest you take a quick glimps at their /. UID...

The person you are calling a 12-year-old, has a UID of 11846, which is significantly lower than yours, and also lower than mine. If he's supposed to be 12-years old now, he much have signed-up for his /. account when he was about 6-years old...

Go back to school chump, leave the nostalgia for those who actually lived through it.

You need to take it easy. You are making yourself look like a 12-year-old...

Re:56k gateways

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

Well, the thing is that the device is a simple ARM-based single-board computer with two ethernet ports and a modem. It runs uCLinux. Anything you can cross-compile and cram into the flash, it will support.

It should be relatively simple to set up, say, PPPoE on one of the ports, a connection to a LAN on the other. Then write a simple script that watches the PPPoE connection status, and dials the modem if the PPPoE has been unable to connect for a certain amount of time.

The device would obviously have control of its own default gateway, which would solve that issue. Would the failover be transparent? Not quite, open connections would break. But it is simple, and would provide service through a DSL blackout.

Re:56k gateways

[tomstdenis]

While I appreciate the lesson from Dan my post was joke originally :-)

For starters, by time I actually started using modems [early 90s] I already missed "the good old days" anyways. Sorry if my comment came off as serious. I'd think people knew me well enough to figure that out.

Tom

Re:56k gateways

[Jim Buzbee]

It sounds like you're looking for one of these. It's a wireless b/g router, 4 port switch, 125 Mhz MIPS processor running Linux 2.4.5 with 16 meg of ram. You can pick one up for around $100. I'm running snort on mine.

Re:56k gateways

[screenrc]

Now what do you want me to say? That you
have to know gcc in order to load an image via the
serial port (and if you can arrange it ahead of time, and if it is still possible)? Thus not readily hackable.

I claimed that I worked on this thing for pay. Perhaps you
have a different opinion, but my word ought to
be good enough.

Re:56k gateways

[theflea]

I agree. I have a similar setup (with the PC as gateway) that works flawlessly with all network clients (5 computers at my house).

You gotta have a proxy server, though. Using my setup (squid) Web surfing with 3+ clients is quite satisfactory.

I hooked my parents up with a similar confuration, and it works great with no intervention on their part.

Re:56k gateways

[screenrc]

Correction: I meant gdb, not gcc.

Re:56k gateways

[Jonner]

There are less subversive uses than the ones you suggest. You forgot...

Either that's a failed attempt at irony or you have very a very different definition of subversive than I do. When was the last time you heard of a bushy-bearded loner secretly building home weather stations in his remote shack?

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

As the original AC, that's exactly what I meant. It would indeed be nontrivial with two separate pieces of non-featured, non-'hackable' hardware... but easy if you could just slam the DSL or cable bridge on one of the ethernet ports, and change the default route as appropriate.

PPP(oE or regular) has link-monitoring support, which is presently clogging my ppp.log because I'm too lazy to turn off the feature and/or logging of it:

Sep 1 12:06:08 mustelid ppp[211]: tun0: LCP: deflink: RecvEchoRequest(24) state = Opened
Sep 1 12:06:08 mustelid ppp[211]: tun0: LCP: deflink: SendEchoReply(24) state = Opened

For cases where this doesn't work, there is 'ping.'

Obviously, if you have VPN users or a DNS domain on the IP, something will break, but the average SOHO sorts just need their email to keep on trucking... If only to tell people that, yes, the VPN and website will be back any minute now. (Support for some sort of DDNS protocol could/should be included in any uber-firmware hack, anyway.)

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. I regularly run multiple tn5250 and printer sessions to an IBM AS/400 over a dial-up/Cipe VPN. They think 9600 baud is plenty for a zesty session.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, this thing has 2 ethernet ports, forget the 56k modem, plug a cable modem into one port and a switch into the other...

Re:56k gateways

[yomegaman]

If they're running Windows they could set up Internet Connection Sharing. That's what I do when I visit my parents. My dad's PC connects to his ISP using the modem, and I bought a cheapo wireless adapter and have his computer share the connection through that to my laptop. It's really easy to set up and works pretty well. That way I can use my laptop at the kitchen table without having to run phone cords all over the place.

Re:56k gateways

[index72]

Bellsouth internet @56K + internet call waiting + tv rabbit ears = $25.00 /mo.

Local cable w/internet option = $55.00/mo.

P166 in home gateway (56K connection) + w/ P200 networked Half-life machine = :)

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW! Looks like you failed english yourself.

OFF

Re:56k gateways

[Effugas]

This is, of course, quite true for several reasons. First of all, a 56k FR line is actually 56K bidirectionally -- by contrast, v.90 (the spec for 56k over PSTN) is actually only a specification for downstream traffic, and even then downstream only occurs at 53.3 "due to FCC restrictions". Upstream still pokes along using v.34 at between 28.8 to 33.6.

Inline compression is also a large contributer to latency -- modems do it, frame relay systems simply don't (to my knowledge, anyway). Compression always has a cost; beyond CPU time, you must actually store data for a bit to see if you can send

Even though you'd think the text inherent to telnet would compress well, you must remember that individual characters are basically one ~54 byte packet per keystroke -- and these are binary packet headers encapsulated by PPP, so good luck compressing that with RLE. (I haven't checked if v.34 had a more intelligent algorithm...if so, the redundant binary headers might actually be symbolizable.) Regardless of compressibility, though, the system will continue to delay the sending of data as it evaluates whether or not it can save bandwidth through compression. So you get added latency here too.

Another small issue is that less overhead may exist for certain types of terminal-over-FR systems, where packets are simply tagged with a header symbol rather than the full thing. For a full serial emulation, it's imaginable for there to not really be packetization at all -- the moment a byte comes in, it is sent upstream. But I think that defeats the multi-terminal case.

The biggest potential hit to latency is someting I suspect but haven't verified: Modems appear to suffer _badly_ from half-duplex crosstalk. In other words, much more than FR lines, if a modem is receiving a significant amount of data, its ability to send is significantly hampered. Now, I could be wrong -- haven't fully tested FR, and Bimodem (a transfer protocol built for uploading and downloading simultaneously from BBSes) did seem effective in the 14.4 days. So I'm unsure.

Actually, some of the most interesting commentary about modem latency has come from John Carmack, the creater of Doom and Quake. IP over Modem users struggle to achieve round trip latencies less than 200ms, and 300-350ms are quite common. This creates a maximum game-world frame rate of about 3-5FPS (since you can only get as many updates as you have round trips!). Carmack's type of games really want 15-30 FPS, so this is a problem. He found that the softmodems could actually be tweaked massively to reduce latency (disable FIFOs and compression, add explicit support for urgent sends, etc). I don't think he ever got the code to build this, though.

So, yes. I'm quite aware of the difficulties with modem latency. Thanks for making me realize that, among other things, modem users can be detected simply by analyzing the latency difference between the hop right before them and their own hop :-) This will be useful.

--Dan

Re:56k gateways

[zakezuke]

No, in the real world, where we get paid to set these things up, the standard config is a Cisco 1721 with a T1/E1

In the real world, where there *is* a market for Linksys routers because not everyone can afford a 1721 let alone a t1/e1 connection, let alone some bugger to set one up.

Do I think this thin thing supports HSRP? *NO* In fact, i'm unsure if there even is anything resembling HSRP under linux yet. What I am sure of is, assuming you are behind a nat firewall, you can indeed change from peforming nat one one device to a ppp device. Very sloppy in contrast to HSRP, but effective.

And why is it always assumed that the *real world* is an enviroment with a budget for a t1/e1 anyway? Is SOHO just a figment of my imagination?

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

In the real world, where there *is* a market for Linksys routers because not everyone can afford a 1721 let alone a t1/e1 connection, let alone some bugger to set one up.

If being online is really enough of a priority to need an automated failover gateway, it's just a poor decision to try to "simulate" it with junk equipment. Those are the kind of customers that need to be "fired", because any project you do under that type of short-sighted budgetary constraint is doomed to failue.

HO users can use a modem in their PC and control the failover themselves.

SO users needs real equipment and a real solution, not hacked together crap, because these are most often the places that also can not afford to have IT support on site. It's much less expensive to get the capex up front for things that will actually work and are both reliable and serviceable, skipping the need for an emergency IT-related visit.

When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me.

Re:56k gateways

[bhtooefr]

Of course, I see more uses than sharing for this. I hope you all remember Blaster. A firewall was a good alternative defense against Blaster (not saying that patching is a bad idea, but you'd probably get all of the patches anyway if you saw how many there were, and over a 56K modem, that's ridculously slow...) AFAIK, this also acts as a firewall. Just think of a cable/dsl modem with a built in router/firewall. Now, take out the cable/dsl modem, and put in a 56K modem. Damn useful, isn't it?

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

don't need serial port to uplaod code; connexant has readily provided a romfs image on their website and telnetd and tftpd on the gateway. this means it should be easy to modify (doesn't mean it will be, but it's a whole lot easier than it could have been!)

Re:56k gateways

[bhtooefr]

Hmm, my grandmother gets connections in the 54-56K area (yes, faster than the FCC allows) consistently. Of course, Conexant-based Winmodems didn't work well with my former ISP. The fastest I got normally was 26K! (Of course, when the lines were cleaned in preparation for ADSL, I got a small speed increase) Quick question, though. Does anyone know whether the newer V.92 standard hits 56K upstream? I know it lets you connect to the ISP faster, and offers internet call waiting. Of course, there's also the Emerson Switchboard, which I suspect is a box with 5 V.92 56K modems. I assume you dial in to IT, and then it calls your destination.

Re:56k gateways

[bhtooefr]

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-16.html

HOWTO on modem doubling (two modems, one ISP). I think your ISP must support it, though.

Re:56k gateways

[istewart]

Some of us, regrettably, are still stuck without broadband.

I have much the same setup as this uClinux gadget would provide, except using an Apple AirPort base station connected to a 10/100 switch. It still provides the wireless access which is its primary design purpose, but my biggest use for it is as a dialup router. It performs all the functions you would expect from a router (DHCP. port filtering, etc) and is set to dial out automatically when it detects outbound traffic.

I concur with your point that having multiple computers using the same dialup connection at the same time is essentially pointless, but this is a whole hell of a lot easier for me than having a modem hooked up to every computer and dialing out seperately on each one. The whole idea is getting tossed out the window as soon as I get DSL (middle of this month according to ATT), but until then, it's made accessing the Internet with each of the computers I use a whole lot easier.

Re:56k gateways

[Wingnut64]

I've got 6 computers on my LAN going through an external 56k modem hooked up to a linux box. If you're just browsing the web, there's no noticeable speed loss unless 2 people click a link at the same time. Online gaming is a bitch though. Nothing like running into a room and having your ping jump to 4095ms, only to learn 30 seconds later that youre dead. It sucks, but broadband can't be had everywhere yet, so there's still a market for these things.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me.

So... people who can't afford your fee are not real?

Yep, you can't work for imaginary people!

Re:56k gateways

[pyrrhonist]

The person you are calling a 12-year-old, has a UID of 11846, which is significantly lower than yours, and also lower than mine. If he's supposed to be 12-years old now, he much have signed-up for his /. account when he was about 6-years old...

From the Slashdot FAQ: Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997...

I'm pretty sure that Slashdot didn't initially start with 11,846 users, but I could be wrong...

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit. You were wrong. And stupid. And can the manham.

Re:56k gateways

[Captain Segfault]

modulo latency. When the other person is loading a page or doing a download or something, it takes on the order of two or three seconds at least (sometimes on the order of 10) to do the combination of a dns lookup and a ping. (I have a similar setup at home, using a normal old router box.)

Re:56k gateways

[Wolfrider]

--Back a few years ago before I got DSL, I had a 56k modem connected to a Linux box running wvdial on-demand and Squid, with about 1 GIG of cache. It was better than nothing, and a valuable learning experience. I was thrilled when it was all up and working, and had 2-3 PCs connected to the server.

--With Squid, if a fairly static page had been loaded by another box beforehand (like comics or yahoo) and the page hadn't changed, delivery was pretty fast - even over 10MBit Ethernet. Remember, the things that slow down content delivery are usually IMAGES or stuff like Shockwave Flash. When all the modem has to do is grab text, and retrieves the images from the Squid cache, a 56k is pretty darn decent.

Re:56k gateways

[Effugas]

Re, V.90/V.92 having faster upstream...I doubt it: 56K only became possible due to the proliferation of digital interfaces to the PSTN. Put simply, the upstream side has more control over their signal than the downstream. A "peer to peer" 56K connection will never exceed 33.6.

They may have fixed the FCC 53.3 limit, or they may have just decided to call whatever they were getting 56K (certainly, there's so much error correction and retransmission anyway that the idea of a consistent fixed speed for an entire session is starting to border on ludicrous).

--Dan

Re:56k gateways

[Stradenko]

Incidentally, this isn't even a thing of the past. It turns out 56K Frame Relay links live on. I know of a _massive_ corporation that links most of its stores to the central mainframe via 56K FR links. Why? Because It Works.

My store 'third largest grocer in the nation or something (not counting Wal-mart) recently upgraded all of the store connections to T1 so we can quickly upload advertisements to the POS.

Re:56k gateways

[Effugas]

AFS: Any Flat Surface :-)

Re:56k gateways

[evilviper]

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997...

I'm pretty sure that Slashdot didn't initially start with 11,846 users, but I could be wrong...

Of course not, but those UIDs fill up quite quickly. I believe I signed-up for my account around 98 (could be wrong, isn't something that's significant in my memory) and my UID is in the hundred-thousands. 6 years after opening, and slashdot has more than 700,000 users now I believe, so those spots did fill up quite quick.

Re:56k gateways

[lelnet]

>You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me.

Right then. So you won't be buying one. I'm sure every slashdot reader was on the edge of his seat awaiting that particular revelation.

"I would not buy this because it is not suitable for my clients' needs" != "This is worthless".

I agree that a box like this is not suitable for enterprise high-availability failover. Duh. But that doesn't mean there are no applications for which it'd be useful. (Most of the ones I can think of at the moment cluster around the telecommuting sphere, where availability matters enough to think about, but not enough to spend thousands of dollars on. That's certainly how I'd use it if I bought one...and I'm actively thinking about buying something like this.)

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

Right then. So you won't be buying one. I'm sure every slashdot reader was on the edge of his seat awaiting that particular revelation. "I would not buy this because it is not suitable for my clients' needs" != "This is worthless".

Try reading up the thread. The originator of this one seems to thinks it's an appropriate automated failover gateway, which is just absurd. Maybe when you're in college it's not, but once you actually see how things work you realize that added complexity often causes more problems that is solves. As I said before: if being online is enough of a priority to warrant an automated failover gateway, a proper solution should be used.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

No, tom, people know you as a bombastic blow-hard who pulls nonsense out of his ass, and refuses to back down when proven wrong. You suffer from a severe lack of genuine introspection.

Re:56k gateways

[L10N]

I passed English and continued on to gain a Master's degree. I am not an English major and I do certainly have flaws in my use of the written word. No, my post requires the reader to connect those three words with elipses in between in order to themselves complete the thought. For the dullards amongst you, I was saying to the troll "That's the pot calling the kettle black." Understood?

Re:56k gateways

[pyrrhonist]

slashdot has more than 700,000 users now I believe, so those spots did fill up quite quick

I would think that the growth rate of the UID values would be slow initially and then go up exponentially as more people heard about Slashdot, so I'm still not really convinced.

I just find it hard to believe that a completely unknown website would have over 11,000 users in the month that it started - especially one dedicated to news for nerds. I'm also pretty sure that Slashdot didn't have over 11,000 users in August of 1997, since it started in September.

Ask taco or somebody.

Re:56k gateways

[brakk]

You could stick two of them together (ethernet side) and make a phone bridge. You could dial into one (voice or data) and dial out on the other, or have it auto forward.

If there is enough room in the rom, you could install a DTMF decoder and be able to dial into it and punch in a code that would be sent down your ethernet for home automation or anything else.

Re:56k gateways

[evilviper]

I'm also pretty sure that Slashdot didn't have over 11,000 users in August of 1997, since it started in September.

I hate perfectionists... My comment was not a mathematical proof, I did not say it was EXACTLY 6 years ago today. Even if he did sign up within the first 6 months or so, that's close enough.

Re:56k gateways

[pyrrhonist]

I hate perfectionists...

And yet from your original post, you are one. Apparently you can dish it out, but not take it. :)

Even if he did sign up within the first 6 months or so, that's close enough.

Six months is probably not enough time either. I don't know, ask taco.

Re:56k gateways

[evilviper]

And yet from your original post, you are one.

That makes no sense. What, in my original post, makes you think I'm a perfectionist?

Six months is probably not enough time either. I don't know, ask taco.

6 months in DEFINATELY enough time. I'm not going to bother taco with something so trivial, just because you want me to. At the very least, you'll have to do ityourself, if you are determined to know for sure.

Re:56k gateways

[pyrrhonist]

That makes no sense. What, in my original post, makes you think I'm a perfectionist?

It was mostly because you corrected the guy about an insult he posted that wasn't meant to be taken literally.

6 months in DEFINATELY enough time.

Your combination of capitalization and poor spelling in lieu of a counterargument to my plausible skepticism is definitely not going to convince me that 6 months is long enough. ;)
However, because I'm starting to find this topic rather stale, and you obviously find me to be a pompous ass, I will concede. Congratulations, you win.

I'm not going to bother taco with something so trivial, just because you want me to.

Don't get me wrong here, I didn't mean to suggest that you must do it. It was only a suggestion in case you were curious, an offhand remark, a conversational embellishment, and meant to end the discussion. That's all really.

BTW, do you want me to ignore you in new topics, or are you still game?

Re:56k gateways

[evilviper]

What, in my original post, makes you think I'm a perfectionist?

It was mostly because you corrected the guy about an insult he posted that wasn't meant to be taken literally.

So, because I (and others, also) didn't notice that someone meant for something to be taken jokingly, that makes me a perfectionist? That makes no sense, but hey, what the heck.

in lieu of a counterargument to my plausible skepticism is definitely not going to convince me that 6 months is long enough.

Frankly, I had simply given up on trying to convince you. All logical remarks seem to be lost on you, which is why I had marked you as a foe. It just tells me who not to waste to much time on in the future...

I'm starting to find this topic rather stale, and you obviously find me to be a pompous ass, I will concede. Congratulations, you win.

First off, you aren't convinced I'm correct, and I'm not convinced that I was incorrect, so I don't see how anyone can be considered to win.

This was a argument about a very trivial matter in the first place, so it doesn't really matter very much to me. As a matter of fact, that was meant to be my last post on the subject. It's only because you basically changed the subject that I chose to reply.

do you want me to ignore you in new topics, or are you still game?

You are perfectly welcome to reply to other comments of mine. Since you are marked as a foe now, I'll remember to cut off future discussions much more quickly than this, when what I say doesn't seem to be affecting your opinion at all.

Re:56k gateways

[pyrrhonist]

So, because I (and others, also) didn't notice that someone meant for something to be taken jokingly, that makes me a perfectionist? That makes no sense, but hey, what the heck.

No, that's not it exactly.
He said, "12 year old liar!"
You said, "Well, actually, he can't really be 12 years old because..."
So, your correction of his statement wasn't any different than my correction of your statement. If I can be called a perfectionist, then you can too.

Frankly, I had simply given up on trying to convince you. All logical remarks seem to be lost on you

They weren't lost on me. Your statements offered a logical possibility, but they simply did not eliminate the other possibilites.

First off, you aren't convinced I'm correct, and I'm not convinced that I was incorrect, so I don't see how anyone can be considered to win.

Right, so we were at an impasse. We couldn't get any further without bringing in a third party, which neither of us was willing to do. That's when I conceded. By default, you win.

...which is why I had marked you as a foe. It just tells me who not to waste to much time on in the future...

LOL! That is probably for the best. I am a skeptic, so you'd be wasting your time a lot.

You are perfectly welcome to reply to other comments of mine. Since you are marked as a foe now, I'll remember to cut off future discussions much more quickly than this, when what I say doesn't seem to be affecting your opinion at all.

Okay. If you were really pissed off, I would add you to my list and you'd be filtered out.

Nice machine

[jmorris42]

Looks like a nice machine with default software that is a bit lame. But since that is now easily fixable, I can think of a few folks in dialup hell that I'll probably be crossing off my Xmas list. :)

Re:Nice machine

[gritz]

ah. the days of dialup. beooopszzz* ;)

Let the comments begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez...

Slashdotted already.. this article's gonna set the record for redundant posts.

Yes, we KNOW his server MUST be behind that 56k modem.

Right, now that we've got that out of the way...

Re:Let the comments begin!

[curious.corn]

No, it's not /.ed, yet. The image links pump at good speed, only trouble is... they're .pngs at around 1~2 Mb each! Well, I suppose the kinds don't have bw caps.

Re:Let the comments begin!

[Thomas M Hughes]

This is why someone needs to make a bittorrent like setup, only for the WWW and static content. IE: you go to a page that's setup with the webtorrent module for apache, and instead of directly loading the page, it goes to look for the files required on a torrent swarm before displaying them. Once you've got a displayed version on your machine, you then serve those files to other people looking for the site. Of course, if you have loads of bandwidth, the whole thing is horribly inefficient. But, this is slashdot, and we kill bandwidth all the time. But with a webtorrent setup, slashdotting would become near impossible.

Its too bad thinking up ideas doesn't instantly cause them to be coded, implemented, and widely accepted. Ah well.

Re:Let the comments begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. I've had upwards of 3500 hits on a page just from a +5 funny post with a link to a small page on my server. I hate to thing of what kind of clicks a front page story would bring with images that size

10,000 at 2MB each - 20,000MB. What's a few GB between friends... per image :P

Curiously, the images of this little 56k modem wonder are just the kind of things you LOVE to avoid on a modem connection!

Re:Let the comments begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

>10,000 at 2MB each - 20,000MB. What's a few GB
>between friends... per image :P

That's more like 200,000MB or 200GB

Re:Let the comments begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Freenet already does this, it's just a question of acceptance and network scaleability.

Re:Let the comments begin!

[Damin]

Actually, the server that is serving the article is running under User Mode Linux, sitting in a data center with 345 megabits of upstream capacity. The images are being served off of another User Mode Linux server (running on the UML Coop Project). When the story hit at 4:30 AM, bandwidth utilization jumped to 8 megabits per second). That is peanuts, and this is now the second time that UML has proven itself Slashdot Worthy. You might want to re-read the article. I purchased the router for my parents to use at their home, not to serve as a gateway for a webserver. Their major purpose is sending E-mail, so 56K is more than adequate for their needs.

Hmm... other products

[Empiric]

Personally, I'm more intrigued by the company's anti-kidnapping technology. I'll sleep easier once that's out of the way.

Re:Hmm... other products

[sacrilicious]

Wow, check out the accompanying graphic... it protects against both pornography AND adult content. They must have some kind of multiprocessing code in there.

Sponsored by AT&T

[madsen]

From the ActionTec site:

the External Dual PC Modem keeps you connected longer, and faster.

Re:Sponsored by AT&T

[BiggerIsBetter]

Harder?

Re:Sponsored by AT&T

[Lussarn]

scooter?

Re:Sponsored by AT&T

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, that cracked me up! I only hope there's enough Scooter fans around to mod you up (+5 Raving)

yeah....

[quizwedge]

but does it run Linux? :ducks:

Re:yeah....

[prtsoft]

Embedded linux, uClinux to be exact, is ran on the little processor you see in the 2nd pic i think.

This is a severe DMCA violation.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be reporting these Lunix hackers to the DMCA/Homeland Security/Bill Gates Tribunal post haste. This blatant and illegal toying with private Intellectual Property is getting out of hand.

They say it's hackable

[Anonymous Coward]

"it's easily hackable"

If only we could hack it into a 256k modem...

Re:They say it's hackable

[macgyvr64]

Giving you the same nice, slow connection. Who loves the FCC? :-P

Re:They say it's hackable

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really the FCC's fault. They imposed the limitation due to the potential for crosstalk due to the nature of the lines themselves. That said, specifying it in bits/second was a dumb way to go about it (and no doubt suggested by the telcos) -- at least, I think that's how the rule is written. So, back in the days when switching was still physical, it would be likely that, were everyone using these hypothetical 256k modems, you wouldn't be connecting near the full speed due to all the interference, and voice service would be degraded for everyone.

But in any case, *since* the regulation was put in place, this allowed the telcos to move to digital switching, since they could know the limit of the signals they'd have to digitize to support all legal users/devices on their circuits. You have to admit, it would've been hard for them to carry on any other way -- Imagine if they still had to support racks of relays just to ensure your attempt to run ethernet-over-phoneline would work. Now imagine if they had to try to support that for *long distance* calling...

Now, DSL is a little different. For one thing, it terminates at the telco's central office racks, or a 'remote terminal' (basically a central-office-in-a-box that connects back to the main office over fiber or some extreme-speed-over-copper solution), so the telco only has to support line quality over a limited, known distance. For another, it takes advantage of technological advancements to run up in relatively high, definitely inaudible frequencies*, so there's little risk of corruption to others' voice service... and further, the hardware is, in fact, advanced enough to pick from any of a number of 'channels,' such that, while it's still only a point-to-point tech, it can avoid crosstalk from your neighbor's link by running on completely different frequencies. Practically speaking, it *is* the best thing telcos can bring you right now over existing copper && at a vaguely affordable price && while being profitable enough for them to continue deploying it.

Now, in exchange for this non-switchability (you aren't "making calls" with DSL, it's basically like having a big fault-tolerant null-modem cable between you and the terminating equipment), the telcos are supposed to open up their racks at reasonable cost so other ISPs can come in and give you a choice of whose service you're plugged into. Yes, this part has been getting a bit screwed up, but that's a political issue; it's hard to imagine it working another way technologically... unless they'd done something like electricity 'deregulation,' and set it up so you'd *always* be using the telco's equipment, backbone, netblock, etc., and choosing which ISP to pay the equivalent of your 'generation charge' to. If you think about it for a moment, you'll realize that'd work roughly as "well" for telecom as it has for electricity, so perhaps it's a good thing they didn't try it that way.

So the real question is not, "Why do we have to buy DSL instead of 256K modems?," it's "Why do we still bother with 'voice' circuits at all, when everything could be 100% digital and routable, with Vonage-style boxes at the NID of the homes?"
It's 2003, and it'd make the most sense for the telcos to become 'data utilities,' in competition with cable, wireless, and third-party fiber-stringers... ...but we're still in a transition period, and since the telcos *will* leap like rabid weasels to price-fix and destroy competition if they're let off their leashes, it's not clear what we can do. The same regulations that *allow* competition for DSL (forcing 'open racks') make it unattractive for the telcos to offer DSL without the underlying, obsolete voice circuit - because then the ILEC wouldn't be getting their cut (or at least, as big of one) if you opted for a CLEC's service.

Meanwhile, of course, cable is practically unregulated, so you get your local monopoly with that, and absolutely no ISP choice (which would be technically 'expensive' anyway, giv

Re:They say it's hackable

[kdsolutions]

replace a couple DSP chips and hack it into a DSL modem...

"Now, where's my soldering iron?!"

Re:They say it's hackable

[pyrrhonist]

"Now, where's my soldering iron?!"

The modem/dsp is SMTed to the board. It's gonna take a while.

Re:They say it's hackable

[netherpunk]

Then it would magicaly be an ISDN connection eh?

why not just buy a mini itx?

[Anonymous Coward]

although a bit larger, you can shove a mini itx board into just about anything. and you can have full on linux & routing capabilities.

Re:why not just buy a mini itx?

[Anonymous Coward]

most via epia board I've seen only have 1 ehternet adapter.... not good for a router.

anyone got a link to some cheap epia boards with 2 or 3 eth ports ?

Re:why not just buy a mini itx?

[Anonymous Coward]

epia cl6000 and epia cl10000 became purchaseable in the US a few weeks ago. However, they are in the $172-$200 range.

Re:why not just buy a mini itx?

[g8way]

Because it's larger, more expensive, has only one ethernet port, and isn't optimized for those types of tasks.. it'd be a huge waste of equipment and money.

Re:why not just buy a mini itx?

[Damin]

Because it is more educational to hack something, learn about it, learn what is neccessary to cross compile and boot a new platform etc.. The purpose of my experimenting with this device was simple curiosity. The merits of doing something with it are left up to more imaginative people that I.

Inexpensive?

[camilita]

If you dont need bells a whistles a 56k modem for more than 50+ bucks seems a bit pricey. There are plenty of linux "compatible" modems for less than 30 bucks.

Re:Inexpensive?

[BrokenHalo]

You pay for what you get, though. When I was on dialup, I used to get through a modem every year (2 Lightspeeds, one Acer and one Netcomm) until I splashed out a few extra $$ for a Mitsubishi Diamond modem (which I still have, but is now relegated to a cardboard box).

Re:Inexpensive?

[EnglishTim]

I think the point is that it is easy to connect two computers to the modem via the ethernet ports if you don't want to have to set up internet connection sharing on one of your computers.

Re:Inexpensive?

[sjbcfh]

I think the point is that it is easy to connect two computers to the modem via the ethernet ports if you don't want to have to set up internet connection sharing on one of your computers.

And at around USD$55, is a lot cheaper than the alternative.

I've installed a few of these for clients who were unable to get broadband, were unwilling to pay more for broadband versus cheap dialup, or were in need of a backup link. Yes, sharing a 56K connection in an office network is hideously slow. It's bad enough sharing a dialup connection with my wife, a bookkeeper, when she needs to update Quicbooks' tax tables. "To hell with your clients, dear, I need to read Slashdot!"

Re:Inexpensive?

[Guppy06]

"If you dont need bells a whistles a 56k modem for more than 50+ bucks seems a bit pricey."

But $50 is about par for the course for external RS-232 modems, which will work on anything with a serial port (we don't need no steenkin' driver!). The cheap ones you're thinking about are the accursed winmodems that require an accompanying software kludge.

Re:Inexpensive?

[jovian_]

I think the point of the article is that the modem/router actually _runs_ Linux, not just that it's Linux compatible.

Re:Inexpensive?

[Damin]

The purpose of the article was to demonstrate how the box can be modified to fit your own needs with the hopes that others will take the initiative and explore. This box is an awesome introduction to embedded computing platforms at nearly 1/4 the price of DIY boards. The fact that it actually is usable as a gateway is not really relevant, nor is the comparison of adding a modem to a Linux box. You won't learn a thing about embedded Linux by adding a modem to your box.

Now what would be really cool

[anonymous coword]

Would be able to hack this machine into a fully usable linux box. Connect a terminal trough the serial port, use a ethernet to USB adapter to plug in some peripheals (such as a keyboard) on one of the ports. Then connect it to the network using the other ehternet port. It would make a nice cheap terminal with its own built in connections.

Re:Now what would be really cool

[Damin]

That would be cool. I think the first goal, however, is to get a really good handle on the platform, find out what it is capable of and how to manipulate it. For example, most embedded platforms have some method for recovering from a corrupt flash and I'm betting that this board does too. However, there is no documentation that I've seen yet that will confirm this. I suspect that the 10 pin jumper is an additional serial port that can be used as the console, but I haven't ripped my parent's modem apart yet to find out. It's too busy actually doing what it was originally designed for (with minor modifications) and I haven't been able to get my hands on another one to play with yet.

In any case, my short term goals for the box are to see if I can get access to the boot-loader firmware, identify a specific uClinux port that can be loaded on the thing and see if I can get a custom kernel to load. Once that is done, then I'll see if I can get and NFS root filesystem working so I can use the box to function as a development platform for itself.

All of this is widly speculative, and not really important to me other than for the simple reason that it might be possible and therefore it is a challenge. I'm sure that a lot of other people out there are going to be hacking on these things and far surpassing my initial investigation and experimentation.

My wishlist

[Koos Baster]

I find a computer most practical when it's connected both to a keyboard and a display...

--
Everything that can be invented, has been invented -- Charles H. Dueel, 1899

Re:My wishlist

[bhtooefr]

Did you not see this?

Connect a terminal trough the serial port

The terminal IS THE DISPLAY. For that matter, it could be the keyboard too...

Re:My wishlist

[Koos Baster]

[Last sentence top thread]
It would make a nice cheap terminal with its own built in connections.

Summarizing: ...Wouldn't it be cool to build a terminal by connecting a modded version of device X through the serial port to a terminal...

Sure. But why not just use the terminal as a terminal?

Re:My wishlist

[bhtooefr]

ISN'T THAT WHAT I SAID?

RTFP. I said that you could use it as a keyboard too, suggesting that it be used as a terminal.

possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[narkotix]

Would it be possible to hack an adsl/cable router to be used as a simple webserver? For a low traffic and static site it would be perfect for my business website hosting needs. 10watts consumption...fanless operation...and small footprint it sounds like a dream! I could even imagine other hacks like interfacing a larger amount of flash storage or running a real low end db &scripting engine to have behaviour like mysql/php3 together.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[zensonic]

I know about hackvalue, but why bother for a webserver? All of the reasons you mention are easily met by a mini-itx board.

Fanless, low on power (can even be frequency/voltage scaled if I remember correctly), small physical footprint, and a lot cheaper than mucking around with some custom built router.

Gramted it is not nearly as much fun than hacking some piece of proporitary hardware! ;-)

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of them already run web servers. Linksys routers use a web interface for all the configuration and hardware setup. This is all hidden from the outside world (WAN port) unless the "remote administration" feature is enabled.

Performance is quite limited - my Linksys takes a few seconds to bring up the configuration page even when it's not busy routing traffic. It's unlikely that it would be able to provide a high enough quality of service for your business customers. It can barely handle basic dynamic content (the IP configuration), let alone any sort of database. This type of hardware is designed for switching packets, not producing HTML.

So it's a cute idea, probably do-able, but not worth it in practice. You'd be better off going with a cheap bare bones system running Linux or FreeBSD. No CD or floppy drive and underclock it to reduce power consumption.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[ColaMan]

Let's see :
- Most of them already have some web interface.
- Some of them allow you to access this interface from the internet.
- All of them are firmware upgradeable, so they have *some* sort of easily-erasable memory in it.
- Some have an obvious directory structure that is read-writeable when you (t)ftp to it. If you're really lucky, this area can include the web pages your router uses to show you info.

So it seems all you mostly have to do is :
- bend router firmware to allow non-local network access to point to a dir with your website in it.
- Add a link to existing router web pages to point to your "outside" site , so you can test/see it.

Hmmm. Might just have to suss this out a bit more... could be handy.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[ls -lR]

My question is why? At the very best, you might be able to implement a very basic web server for static pages but forget about scripting or anything too advanced. It would be dependent on some server in your LAN for storage as well, so you'd still have to run a "real" server anyway. I think you overestimate the amount of processing power in those things. For not much more cost, just get one of those mini-itx boards and install FreeBSD or Linux. You'll get a modern, standards compliant server that can handle nearly any task and it can still be cheap and fanless.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[zakezuke]

So it's a cute idea, probably do-able, but not worth it in practice. You'd be better off going with a cheap bare bones system running Linux or FreeBSD. No CD or floppy drive and underclock it to reduce power consumption.

One thing I know i've discussed over a pint of beer are remote observation stations, trivial little devices that measure temprature, water level, that sorta thing. Out of the way places with NO easy access to landlines.

If you are talking off the shelf barebones system, you are talking a minium of 60watts for basic option. 10watts is a hell of alot more attractive if your power source is something like solar and battery storage.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soekris has some nice boxes for this kind of things. They are low-power, and can be run entirily from a CompactFlash card (there's a model that can take a 2.5" laptop harddisk too, if you need lots of data)
And these boxes run popular free *nices (linux, free/openbsd,...)

http://www.soekris.com

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[grumling]

An intresting solution much like you describe is available already. I have one, and for some aplications such as you describe, it may be just the ticket.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[evilviper]

If you are talking off the shelf barebones system, you are talking a minium of 60watts for basic option.

Hmm... That 60watts would probably be with a hard drive spinning, a processor operating at very fast speeds, and several cooling-fans spinning... None of which you would get if you used this little device.

In fact, what you would be better off with, is a good, slow, laptop computer. Old laptops can be gotten rather cheaply, use very little power, and can be expanded with whatever PCMCIA devices you like.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[bhtooefr]

How about Mini-ITX? A VIA EPIA M10000 Nehemia with a slimline (CD-RW/)DVD-ROM drive and a 2.5" laptop HDD, when playing a DVD - which is much more CPU load than a server would have - takes less than 38 watts of power.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[zakezuke]

ICP Global Technologies 10010 BatterySaver Solar panel in theory provides 15watts of power.

Laptop is prefered because typicaly speaking they consume less then 20watts with the disk spinning, atleast mine power supply is rated for 20watts, never broke out the multi-meter. I'd have to see how much mine actualy consumes @ boot and @ disk power down and engery save mode.

Embedded is prefered over laptop, though laptops can be adapted, for the most part in the event of reboot you still stuffer from a dependance on disk boot, and that ever common "Cmos battery failed, values reset, press f1 to enter setup". Let alone issues of leaving a disk out in the natural enviroment.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[Damin]

The Actiontec already runs Boa as a webserver. Provided you have simple, static HTML pages, it would be simple to modify the Actiontec to serve your content. I'm not sure how SMART this would be, but it is certainly possible. The entire configuration interface is Web based. If you wanted to try this out you can follow the directions in my article for modifying the filesystem, add your pages and re-upload the new image to the router.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[evilviper]

for the most part in the event of reboot you still stuffer from a dependance on disk boot, and that ever common "Cmos battery failed, values reset, press f1 to enter setup". Let alone issues of leaving a disk out in the natural enviroment.

Even large PCMCIA flash cards are pretty cheap now, so you really wouldn't need a disk, and the [potential] problems that come along with them.

As for CMOS, that's really not a problem. Little watch batteries last years, and a couple Alkaline/Lithium AAs would probably work for more than decade with no other power. Besides that, saving the values is CMOS isn't really necessary, since defaults work perfectly. As long as you have a BIOS that doesn't wait forever for user input (many don't, these days) it would be just fine without any CMOS battery.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[zakezuke]

Even large PCMCIA flash cards are pretty cheap now, so you really wouldn't need a disk, and the [potential] problems that come along with them.

As for CMOS, that's really not a problem. Little watch batteries last years, and a couple Alkaline/Lithium AAs would probably work for more than decade with no other power. Besides that, saving the values is CMOS isn't really necessary, since defaults work perfectly. As long as you have a BIOS that doesn't wait forever for user input (many don't, these days) it would be just fine without any CMOS battery.

Here lies the paradox. You want something older and slow to decrease power consumption, yet something modern enough to not totaly tweek out if the cmos battery fails. I'll have to see what the defaults are on something a more modern laptop... the last time I checked on my a7v333 motherboard without a keyboard, it still prompted me "no keyboard detected press any key to continue".

In order to avoid the issue cmos default booting from ide channel... I would think that flash media drive would be a better option then PCMCIA.

It's not like you couldn't do it, and have it work well... it just seems to make more sence to go with one of these embeaded devices that's already designed to take input via remote anyway.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[evilviper]

the last time I checked on my a7v333 motherboard without a keyboard, it still prompted me "no keyboard detected press any key to continue".

That is rare these days. If your bios reports an error when it doesn't detect a PS/2 keyboard, that causes problems if you are using a USB keyboard. Even most 200MHz systems default to NOT worrying about the keyboard.

And BTW, I also have an Asus A7V333 mobo, and I don't remember it complaining about missing the keyboard at all. I think maybe you should restore the defaults, and try again.

Oh, and you could also use a LinuxBIOS, I've heard it works quite well on supported systems.

In order to avoid the issue cmos default booting from ide channel... I would think that flash media drive would be a better option then PCMCIA.

I wouldn't... It's almost exactly the same thing.

Besides, you are ignoring the posibilities of just beefing-up your backup battery, which would work quite well.

Re:possible to hack cable/adsl routers?

[zakezuke]

the last time I checked on my a7v333 motherboard without a keyboard, it still prompted me "no keyboard detected press any key to continue".

That is rare these days. If your bios reports an error when it doesn't detect a PS/2 keyboard, that causes problems if you are using a USB keyboard. Even most 200MHz systems default to NOT worrying about the keyboard.

Actually I don't use the PS/2 slot on there anymore. It could be my bios revision, but I will say that once and a while bootup requires user intervention. Failed autodetection of the cpu and what not

Besides, you are ignoring the posibilities of just beefing-up your backup battery, which would work quite well.

Oh yea... beef-up the backup battery, add more solar panels, always a solution. Or go with what consumes the least amount of power in the first place, which I don't actually know at the moment because i'm too lazy to pull out my multi-meter.

Re:Is the page being served by that modem?

[amcguinn]

What next? RAID-5 using a stack of 8 inch floppies?

Too late

Re:Is the page being served by that modem?

[Matthias Wiesmann]

Anyway, it seems a bit silly to try to make something useful out of rather old hardware.

You must be new here, this is slashdot, you know...

What next? RAID-5 using a stack of 8 inch floppies?

This has been done already albeit using 3.5'' floppies.

"A bit lame" cry they...

[Lacertus]

Though it may be a common mentality to proclaim something such as this a 'technological innovation' well past it's prime, I urge you to remeber that that 50% of our (well, my) U.S. population happily exists on a 56K home *dialup* connection.

Yes, the net is revolutionary in its selfless intent for make information avialable. Let us please rejoice in these simple, evolutionary advances that bring the world that much closer to what _we_ have known for years :-)

Odd

[Kurin]

I just got an Actiontec ADSL modem to work, and this was the first URL I used to test it. Odd.

Duh. Build your own

[Anonymous Coward]

... using a Lex board with 3 ethernet ports (WLAN and MoDem optional).

Re:Duh. Build your own

[hattig]

What a useless website.

"Best View with 24bit color, 800x600 resolution and IE4.0 above (R)2000 Copyright by BONA and all rights reserved" - what, to see the blue words "Embedded System"?

Re:Duh. Build your own

[WindBourne]

I am getting the same thing. I am guessing that these folks simply do not like to sell products.

Re:Duh. Build your own

[hattig]

I sussed that you had to add index1.htm to the URL and it works. not that I can find the motherboard in question, but they have lots of other boards.

Re:Duh. Build your own

[bhtooefr]

http://www.lex.com.tw/cv860b.htm, which is the second link in the post suggesting a lex board. Really, I'm looking at the BN860T. It's 10mm larger than a mini-itx board, but it takes any P3/Cel3/C3/Eden.

NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[sonamchauhan]

The "dual modem" mention in the article header made me think for a moment this product allowed multiple users to share a composite link. (See my earlier post on this topic). Rather this product allows 2 users to share *one* link.

A composite link to two *different* ISP could be implemented quite simply by say, using a proxy server to multiplex outbound HTTP requests among multiple interfaces (each interface corresponding to one phone connection).

This approach is more coarse-grained and inefficient than TCP/IP-level channel bonding. However, it would still be useful for places out in the boondocks where you can get two telephone lines, but no broadband. Also, its efficiency could be improved by using HTTP functionality that allows specific byte-ranges to be downloaded for a particular resource.

Re:NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[Anonymous Coward]

And, it would obfuscate the orgins, ordering, and content of your traffic since it would be scattered across, say, on ISP in florida and another in wisconin.

Re:NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[lucifuge31337]

This approach is more coarse-grained and inefficient than TCP/IP-level channel bonding.

WTF is TCP/IP-level supposed to be? Do you mean layer 3? Bonding is most often done at layer 2 to avoid asymmetric routing. This obviously requires remote-end support.

Re:NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[Anonymous Coward]

here's a good article on load balancing multiple routing tables.

http://www.samag.com/documents/s=1824/sam0201h/0 20 1h.htm

Re:NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[sonamchauhan]

here's a good article on load balancing multiple routing tables.

http://www.samag.com/documents/s=1824/sam0201h/020 1h.htm

Thanks Mr. Anonymous - looks interesting!

Re:NOT "dual modem" -- rather 1 modem, 2 users

[Damin]

Actiontec's naming is a bit deceptive. When I picked up the box, I had to read it several times to really decipher what the hell this thing was. The "Dual PC" in "Dual PC Modem" is intended to mean "Two PC's can share a single Dial Up connection through the onboard modem".

In any case, I slapped one of the ethernet ports into a Wireless access point and now my Mom can surf for recipes on her Laptop in the kitchen.

xDSL

[FrostedWheat]

Anyone know a good DSL router that runs Linux? We are getting broadband here soon (Woo-hooo!) and I'd love to get one that I could tweak!

Re:xDSL

[Zarf]

The new linksys does according to O'Reilly Net. You don't need much tho' ... and I've not had trouble finding products to help with Broadband network bridging. All manner of PPPoE, RAS, and other kinds of Cable Modem, DSL Modem, and such tools are easy enough to find.

My problem was I was on ISDN or 56K and I wanted to share my internet connection.

This Actiontec device would have been really handy to have had. As it was I ended up putting a modem and ISDN card into a Linux box and setting it up as a proxy server with Dial On Demand set to the ISDN provider.

I moved cities to get broadband though and I'm much happier now that I don't have to do such contortions anymore.

Re:xDSL

[FrozenDownload]

Anyone know a good DSL router that runs Linux? We are getting broadband here soon (Woo-hooo!) and I'd love to get one that I could tweak!

i dont know what exactly you mean by "tweak", but many people seem to like linksys, i used to use one myself until i went to a homegrown solution.

The only problem I found with the linksys came after quite a bit of usage, and quite a bit of firmware upgrades, it was the model befsr41, and after a time, if you sent so many packets down the line/sec(i dont even have approx #), it would basically die for a couple minutes before it would come back up. SPI would also not allow for port forwarding. It was however the best router I have worked with before.

I have also helped a couple friends setup some ranging from netgear to dlink to belkin to microsoft. There are a couple quirks with each, like the netgear mr314. If you want to run a server behind that, it doesn't alias the external ip to the lan ports, so basically say you want to ping your external ip,...well you can't. :( you have to refer to it by its internal ip(which would be something to the effect of 192.168.0.1 for netgear).

The microsoft, dlink and belkin i didn't work with quite as much(as far as in depth tweaking), but i assume there are quirks with each of the systems. For the sake of not liking things to be broken as far as functionality, i would recommend a linksys. :)

Re:xDSL

[pev]

Yes, as mentioned by others, the Linksys WRT54G runs Linux and *is* hackable. I haven't seen any responses after the initial bitching by peeps about not having the GPL parts of its firmware available from Linksys, but they are actually available from their website now. See :

http://www.linksys.com/support/gpl.asp

I just need to buy one to play with to replace my old Netgear one...

~Pev

Re:xDSL

[herrison]

I have an actiontec adsl wifi box at home. Tiny little thing. I've had three PCs connecting to it simultaneously, including a mate in a car parked down the street. Very nice.

Re:xDSL

[evilviper]

I know I've got a good one... It's a 166MHz PC.

And I don't want to hear anyone say that they are expensive, or hard to come by...

Re:xDSL

[FrostedWheat]

And I don't want to hear anyone say that they are expensive, or hard to come by

Definitly not expensive, but it's surprisingly hard to get old hardware around here. I have a couple of P133 chips and some SIMMS (8Mb each... amazing ;-) but I haven't been able to get a working Pentium mobo lately.

That and a dedicated xDSL box looks so much better sitting on my desk -- what can I say, I love blinky lights!

Re:xDSL

[wayward_son]

I have a Westell Wirespeed DSL modem/router that BellSouth gave me.

I could be wrong, but I believe it is running some type of embedded Linux.

Re:xDSL

[evilviper]

but it's surprisingly hard to get old hardware around here.

Living with the penguins are we? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm using older computers as foot-rests these days. I litterally have people showing up at my door with Pentium computers asking me if I'll take it off their hands.

My current foot-rest is a P100, with 4 PCI slots, 3 ISA slots, 1GB HDD, 250W Power supply, 32MB RAM, floppy drive, and soundcard with attached CD-ROM. A few feet away I have a Pentium PRO 180MHz DEC, with 128MB of EDO. It's even new enough that it's an ATX.

If you want one.. Or a few dozen, just poy for shipping and I'll send you as many as you can handle. Frankly, I know it's going to be a hassle to legally dispose of these, so putting them back into use would be a better solution, but there's so many of them, and so few people that know how to do anything productive with them. Not to mention that it ends up being a lot of work figuring out what still works, and putting pieces from a couple systems together to make one really good one.

but I haven't been able to get a working Pentium mobo lately.

How many would you like?

and some SIMMS (8Mb each... amazing ;-)

Hell, I've got plenty of 16MB sticks of EDO, and a few 32MB sticks as well (not that you really need more than 16MB for a simple router)

That and a dedicated xDSL box looks so much better sitting on my desk

I agree with you there. There's also the fact that they use a bit less power than a Pentium system.

what can I say, I love blinky lights!

I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Blinking LEDs are okay for a while, but they get REALLY REALLY irritating.

My DSL modem has 3, industrial-power LEDs, that light up a room like a 20watt night-light. But that isn't so bad, because it replaced my cable-modem, which had about a dozen LEDs in various locations all over it, and half of them would be constantly blinking like mad.

I've got several power LEDs on each computer, the IDE light flashes off and on, removable HDD slots with their own blinken-lights. Power supplies and UPSes with their own lights, usually flashing, and each of my keyboards has a few LEDs that need to stay on. Amplified speakers with multiple, powerful, glowing LEDs. Cordless phones/battery rechargers with lights glowing all the time, and Philips/Magnavox has decided that there should even be an LED on my remote, to blink on and off, just in case I don't relaize that I am pushing a button.

I can't understand case-modders at all. If anything, I'd pay more NOT to have my computers giving off lots of flashing lights.

The worst part of all, is that it's not practical to cover them. Each little light needs to be easy to see, so I know if something is on, and operating properly. I want to go back to the days before LEDs, when decices would either have something physically move into place to show that it was on, or would have the nice, soft, yellow-glow of normal, small, incadesent bulbs.

I guess the first thing I need to design is some tiny device, that can be made to change colors very easilly with a small electrical current, but doesn't give off non-polarized light.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention how annoying my network cards, and hub/switches are... SO... MANY... BLINKEN... LIGHTS... AAAHHahahahahahaahaha. Muhahahahhaa.

Re:xDSL

[FrostedWheat]

Living with the penguins are we?

Not far from it :)
It's a fairly non-techy part of the UK here. Very few 486 or Pentium machines because few people bought them. It's only in the last few years that PCs have become popular. So yea, I'll soon have lots of spare parts :) -- but for now I'm stuck.

just poy for shipping and I'll send you as many as you can handle

The shipping costs would probably not make it worth while. I assume your in the USA or Canada?

Blinking LEDs are okay for a while, but they get REALLY REALLY irritating.

My old 16 port 10mbit hub had 16 very bright LEDs. Copy a file and you get an instant disco. Into the bargin there is a horribly bright fluorescent spotlight on my main computer case. That thing can blind you if your not careful!

(Yea, it's a link to an image on a .cx website ... you can trust me :-)

Retro

[Djinh]

Woah!
56k ??
/. goes retro!

Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[gibodean]

Yeah, 56k is pretty slow for lots of us these days.

But, the device is hackable, and so you can turn that modem into an incoming port, instead of connecting to the internet outgoing.

It would be great for me. I've got ADSL, and a non-router modem. I want to share the ADSL between the PCs in my house, and also allow my girlfriend to dial in to use it too (instead of paying an ISP). And, I don't want to have a noisy, power chugging PC running 24/7 just to do that.

This device would be great. One ethernet port to connect to the ADSL modem, one to connect to my internal network, and the landline modem to allow my girlfriend to dial in.

Re:Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[pe1rxq]

The only downside of your setup is that the 56k modem drops to 33k6 when you use it to dial in...
56k only works if the isp can tap into the digital phone exchange...

Jeroen

Re:Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's indeed a nice thought.

Stupid question, though- there are lots of ISPs offering near-nationwide dialup for $10/month. (The one I was with was 1access.net, who were reselling accounts with StarNet USA, one of a few huge-ish point-of-presence companies out there. I know someone else who was with 10emails.com, who basically does the same thing, though they only had UUNet available in his area, which meant some sort of usage cap at the time.) I think the remains of NetZero are now doing the same thing, though I don't know if you can get on with them without using their dorky client software.

So the question is... last I checked, a phone line cost the same or more per month, and it's nice to be able to use it for voice calls every once in a while. Are you sure you wouldn't be better off just paying for an account with a ghetto ISP? ...or just putting her on the dialup account your DSL provider probably gives you? (IIRC, at least SBC/Yahoo - who I'm with - does allow one concurrent login on the dialup account while the DSL is active, under the assumption that the second user is you or a family member on the road. If anyone complains, which is unlikely, you could claim you consider her "family" and agree to make alternate arrangements, without getting to the point of any threats to discontinue service.)

Just trying to make some helpful suggestions, here.

Re:Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[lucifuge31337]

The only downside of your setup is that the 56k modem drops to 33k6 when you use it to dial in... 56k only works if the isp can tap into the digital phone exchange...

More accurately, one side has to be ISDN. A simple USR Courier-I will allow a 56k connection to a 56k-capable modem on an analog line.

Re:Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[KkiniDst]

This is similar to my plan for the device. I plan to reconfigure it into a DSL router using the two ethernet ports and possibly NFSv3 to pick up some external storage somewhere.

We were hoping that the 10-pin header on the board was possibly a serial port of some kind, but we haven't figured it out yet.

The modem could be used for all sorts of things. I think it would be useful to run mgetty on the serial port for it and when the pppoe software goes wonky (which it sometimes does), this could be used to dial in, get a console, and restart it.

What about a uClinux-based answering machine? run a vgetty on the modem, configure NFSv3 for external storage of messages. Maybe have a cron job on that separate server to send an email when a new message comes in. The possibilities are limitless... now whether those possibilities are possible...

Re:Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[pyrrhonist]

What about a uClinux-based answering machine?

You could try to put Asterisk on it.

So who's got a mirror of this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean we can run a web server on it?

DAn

Re:So who's got a mirror of this one?

[Damin]

The box already runs the Boa webserver. Follow my directions in the article, and you can add static HTML pages (and even your own CGI's if you get a cross compilation environment going) onto the box. If we got a kernel with NFS support onto the box, it would trivial to mount your Webpages off of a remote NFS server.

Alcatel Speedtouch Home ADSL modem HACK

[fons]

Where I live, most people have an Alcatel Speedtouch Home ADSL modem (currently sold by Thompson).

It is fairly easy to hack this modem and change it into an ADSL-router + DHCP server.

I've done it 10+ times for friends and i never had any problems. I can seriously recommend this hack. A router for the price of a modem! ANd much more practical than setting up an old 486 linux-box as router. The modem doesn't run linux, but you can do portforwarding etc.

Remember: you have to know what you're doing and this stuff will certainly void the warranty. I've also never tried this hack with a thompson-branded modem.

a few howto's:

• http://www.firstdbasource.com/alcatel.html
• http://www.weethet.nl/english/adsl_mxstream_alcate lhack.php

Re:Alcatel Speedtouch Home ADSL modem HACK

[ComaVN]

Er, that's not a hack. The thing has a telnet and web interface with default empty password to do that stuff for god's sake. (Only from ethernet side of course)

At least, the one I got (from XS4ALL.nl) has.

56K probably too small for /.

[valentyn]

/. editors should have known that a 56K connection can be /.-ed all too easy... ;-)

Re:56K probably too small for /.

[Damin]

I see many posts referencing some misguided, lame comments that the article is hosted on a 56k modem. That is just plain stupid. It's hosted on a server, sitting in a datacenter, running Apache under User Mode Linux. In fact, when the article was posted, the bandwidth usage climbed up to 8 Megabits / Second without much impact. The pictures are sitting on a separate server managed by the UML Coop. This just goes to show that UML is up to the task of Slashdot!

USA for south africa?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother giving money to buy guns for the greedy when you can give bandwidth to the needy.

USA for South Africa!

I differ

[WindBourne]

I bought this the other day to use on networks for remote systems. One of the problems that you run into is being able to access a network when either the internet, the main server, or the firewall machine is out. This is very useful
In addition, I was thinking that this is the perfect device to load a hylafax on. For incoming faxes, I was thinking of using nfs v3 over tcp for the storage.

56k gateways ARE still valid

[nurb432]

Ever think of backup for when your DSL or cable goes down?

Or for those people that are still on a waiting list for broadband? Having something like this ( or the USR equivalent ) lets you setup the network and when your broadband finally arrives, nothing really changes.. makes it easy for end users.

56k is NOT dead.. Though it IS slow as hell, and not ones first choice for a business, sometimes its your only choice...

ok, ok

[fons]

Ok, so it's not a 'hack' per se. But it surely isn't documented in the ISP's manual :-)

What password are you reffering to? I did need one to go to expert mode. (my provider is Skynet).

Re:ok, ok

[ComaVN]

It asks for user/pw when telnetting to it. I don't know about expert mode, it seems te be in expert mode by default. (ie. I can change portmappings, firewall, dns, etc.)

I guess I have a different version or something. (Alcatel SpeedTouch 510, HW platform ADNT-Q, SW version 4.0.0.9.0)

On a related note, does anyone know how you get this device to come back on automatically after the power has been cut?? It seems you have to physically press the button on it to turn it on after a power failure, which is annoying to say the least.

rubbish!

[Gonoff]

Linux can use whatever form of technology that there is support for.
Are you thinking of WinModems? Linux doesn't use many of these because the manufacturers do not release the specs in case a Linux user was to buy one. They only want money from Windows users. Apparently $MS are more valuable than just plain old $ money ...

Where to buy in the UK?

[_ObSeSsIoN_]

Where would you be able to buy one of these in the United Kingdon? I've had a look at all the suggested retailers for Actiontec in the UK and none of them sell it... Shipping from the US is over $40 :(

Re:Where to buy in the UK?

[fireshipjohn]

I think you'll find the UK telephone system needs different settings and approvals and therefore its not viable for the UK market, they dont seem to sell any modem products in the UK.

That said, it would probably work if you got one :)

Anyway ignore the 56k, think of all the good hacks you can do with it, ethernet-serial must be easy...

John

ENUM PBX?

[chuckychesthair]

Sounds like this is a perfect candidate for a machine that can be a VoIP gateway while still keeping backward compatibility with pots.

Hopefully the thing is powerful enough for a home with a few cheap SIP phones.

CC

sorry, its linux

[skajake]

This article is flawed! It runs Linux which cannot be exploited! Cmon guys.

DirecPC server?

[crypton]

Sounds like this might be usable for anyone wanting to set up a server for a satellite connection that has the downlink via the dish/usb modem and the uplink via ISP/phone modem like DirecPC does. The only linux project so far is at Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/direcpc

114 posts and no...

[Sleepy]

"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!"??

Dammit, where can I get one?!?!

[Guppy06]

Laugh if you want, but necessity dictates that I can only get a 56k internet connection, and there's two computers in the house. I'm currently using XP's internet connection sharing thingie but I'd kill for a hardware-based solution right about now, at least one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I thought Stratitec's (discontinued) "Easy Internet Router," which had a serial port for connecting an external modem as well as ethernet ports, would be The Answer, except that the router seriously slowed down when routing a dial-up connection (tech support's excuse was "Well, we only intended it to be a back-up and the router really isn't designed to do that...")

Now I hear about this, which to me sounds like a Holy Grail, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. The only place I can find it is one of those shady dealers operating on Amazon. There has to be somebody slightly more reputable with some for sale, or at the very least something else to let me compare prices!

Re:Dammit, where can I get one?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

A junker 486 or Pentium work fine with Freesco and an ISA "hardware" modem or external.
Great comunity, easy to set up, can run from Compact Flash if desired.
Build from leftovers and enjoy!http://forums.freesco.org/support/

Re:Dammit, where can I get one?!?!

[Guppy06]

But a baby AT case won't sit comfortably on top of my tower. Deskspace is at a premium.

Besides, if I'm going to be using a PC as a router, why not just continue using one of the PCs I already have on my network?

Re:Dammit, where can I get one?!?!

[codermotor]

I've been doing this for at least the last five years. I use a 3Com 3C886 56K LAN Modem: 4-port (+1 cross-over) hub, DHCP, NAT, Weblett access, etc.) firewalled by a Netgear FVS318 Firewall/router.

I regularly run at least three PCs on this connection, and have had up to six Internet connections up at a time with no practical loss of speed (seat-of-the-pants benchmarking - the only kind that counts in the real world).

The best part of using one of these rather than a standard modem is the elimination of all that PPP nonsense. The ethernet connection is much easier to setup and manage. Also, I have noticed that with using the LANmodem, I have fewer disconnects than I did with my modem.

The downside to the 3Com product is its cost. I wish the Actiontec had been around when I got my 3Com - it's a third the price. And with a hub or switch, who needs more than one port anyway.

I'm going to be looking into getting one of these for each of my friends and relatives who, like me, cannot yet afford broadband.

Re:Dammit, where can I get one?!?!

[Kazymyr]

Pricegrabber is your friend. Search for "Actiontec dual modem" and you'll find it in several places, the cheapest at Provantage.

What?!

[theTerribleRobbo]

Farkin' 'eck.

I must have no life here - I carefully monitor my 1GB/month usage, and only rarely download big files (eg. MySQL -- 12 MBs!!). I don't want to have to pay $5 per extra megabyte of usage.

Pity me. Hate Telstra (Australian ISP/Phone Company, also known as _the_ monopoly). :-D

Yo yanks are spoilt. :-)

Mailing Lists for Actiontec Hackers

[william_lorenz]

I'm going to establish some mailing lists for those who want to get one of these and share stories, findings, ideas, and the like. If you're interested in getting in on the action, please send a blank email to actiontec@express.org, and I'll get you subscribed.

Re:Mailing Lists for Actiontec Hackers

[PeteABastard]

You might want to check out

www.uclinux.org

and

www.ucdot.org

uclinux.org has a link to the uClinux developer mailing list.

Compatability vs. Requirements

[Radical Rad]

They listed the device as compatible with:

Operating System Compatibility Windows 98 / 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP/ MAC OS 7.1 and higher/ Linux / Unix

But then for Minimum System Requirements they ask for:
Windows 98, 98SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP

Is it necessary to have an ms Windows pc in order to configure the thing? What if all you have is Macintosh or, like me, Linux? Or are they saying that Windows is the bare minimum and, of course, anything else more than meets the requirements?

Re:Compatability vs. Requirements

[vonsneerderhooten]

You missed the fine print.

Right below minimum req's, in about .5 point font:
Recommended System Requirements: Linux, Unix, MacOS.

-D

Re:Compatability vs. Requirements

[Damin]

The short answer is "no, you do not need a Windows PC to configure this thing".

When you plug it in, it defaults to 192.168.0.1 (and 2) and if you setup your PC to pull an address from DHCP, you'll get and address from the box. Then, you can simply http://192.168.0.1 from a Mozilla (or whatever flavor browser you like) and configure it.

They ship this stupid piece of software called "Router Buddy" which has these lame graphics, opens a Web Browser session for you and then adds a Toolbar link to XP so that you can easily connect to the router with a single click.

Samping

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

I was going to mod you up, but I decided to reply instead.

The limitation you refer to has very little to do with managing crosstalk. What actually happened is that the phone company was maximizing the number of channels they could fit on a single wire by using a technology called Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM).

Since an average voice conversation has a bandwidth of about 2KHz, they built in a low-pass filter with a cutoff somewhere in the vicinity of 3KHz. This means they can heterodyne the channels, each (roughly)3KHz wide, onto a single wire.

Now, this means that the data rate (in terms of zero crossings per second (the original meaning of baud) is limited to about 2400. The "high speed" modems, all the way up to 56K, have a baud rate of 2400. This is a hard limit due to the phone company hardware.

What changed is the number of bits per baud. A 56K modem might use as many as 24 bits per baud, assuming the line is clear enough. The number of bits per baud is capped by the noise floor of the signal, which is also why you won't always connect at 56K (noisier lines can't handle the resolution).

In the move to digital networks, the same total channel datarate was designed into the switching systems. I'm not entirely sure the sampling rate and quantization parameters of these systems, though.

Re:Samping

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for clearing that aspect up. 'Managing crosstalk' is, of course, the charitable way to give the FCC an excuse for regulating it if you want to believe they weren't always the complete tool of the Bells. Reality is, of course, that the FCC does things like finding out what the Bells have/will be putting in place, and what the manufacturers want, and are supposed to bring everything together in regulations that hopefully benefit the nation at large; we'd all be pissed if USR brought to market 256K modems that only worked if you were on a relay-switched exchange in backwoods Alaska or something.

Of course, the current laissez-faire leadership have let that duty slide, leading to the wonderful confusion of the ISM band(s), and Slashkids chanting the Open Spectrum dogma while whining that their cordless phone screws up their 802.11b.

I was subconsciously aware of the FDM schemes (See? They've been doing it before it even went digital!), and the 'baud' aspect, but wasn't down with the math, and didn't want to confuse all the young'ns.

Dammit, where can I get one?!?!-3COM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there's the suggestion of the other poster, but the embedded solutions are usually quiet and cheap. You may be able to find on eBay a used 3COM 3C886 (there's a ISDN model as well as a two modem model available). Don't forget to check the mom-and-pop shops (got mine that way), and make certain that you have the latest firmware, so that people can dial in and access a server (if you have one), along with a few other enhancements.

Re: incoming ... remote house control

[quarkscat]

this product, with the hacks, brings some
interesting house control ideas to mind.
why have a "real" computer exposed to the
outside world? add a DTMF encoder/decoder
into the mix, stir in a bit of homebrew
"power-over-ethernet", and voila! a whole
new product is born ...

BBS?

[MegaFur]

Well, since it's got two modems and Linux in it, you could use it to set up a two-line BBS. If line one is busy, your users can try line two.

whee

Re:BBS?

[Damin]

It has one modem and two ethernet ports. The "Dual PC Modem" is intended to connotate two PCs sharing a single modem connection.

Misleading, but accurate nonetheless.

great hack value

[kguilber]

This is a perfect example of how useful playful hacking can be to the industry. This guy found a gaping wide security hole in the router, and Actiontek actually listened, and fixed it the same day. If only more companies listened more closely to the hacker community....

Actiontec vs. GPL?

[Anonymous Coward]

The user manual does not state the use of GPL covered code or provide a written offer for ANY of the source code. Well, I guess that terminates their right to redistribute my contributions to the kernel.

Do any of the Actiontec ADSL units use uClinux?

[fireshipjohn]

From the modem rom image:

# if [ -e /lib/modules/cnxt_adsl.o.proprietary ]; then
# /sbin/insmod /lib/modules/cnxt_adsl.o.proprietary

commented out, but theres several references to ADSL

interesting...

John

Better...

[poptones]

Ask around and you will most certainly find someone with an old system in the closet. Download the IPCOP (21MB) ISO (don't even mess with smoothwall, it doesn't support ipchains and the CEO is a dickhead that cannot be trusted), burn it to a CD, and install it on said old system.

Now you have NAT on your 56k line AND security AND accounting AND a means of blocking the spammers when they start port scanning you.

Anyone connecting a windows machine directly to the net is just asking for it. Thing is, if you do that you'll probably never even know how many times your system has been compromised, or what has been "borrowed" from you.

56k gateways-"Real reality"

[Anonymous Coward]

"When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me."

What a silly thing to say. A SOHO that has a home-based business is a "real business". A lot of them don't have "real IT staff", or funds for "real consultants". Although they do have "real money" to buy "real products", from "real companies" that do have people familiar with "real IT issues", and the expertise to package that into a "real solution".

That's why the "appliance" aka "junk equipment" market will be growing. Donald Norman (google the name) already wrote about this in "The Invisable Computer".

When broadband wasn't an option...

[Anonymous Coward]

When 56KB modems was the fastest game in town, I installed Apache 1.3 on my Win 2K Workstation as a proxy server so that my Sun SPARCStation could also access the internet.

Noone needs morality when there isnt enough to eat

[zakezuke]

"When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me."

What a silly thing to say. A SOHO that has a home-based business is a "real business". A lot of them don't have "real IT staff", or funds for "real consultants". Although they do have "real money" to buy "real products", from "real companies" that do have people familiar with "real IT issues", and the expertise to package that into a "real solution".

This sounds like the classic example of the IT consultent class system. I find the whole attitude of if it's not a cisco router or a USR/3com modem it's not real most annoying. Franky speaking, I've found USRs to be the most unreliable modems you can buy, assuming *real* conditions like crappy lines or actually handshaking with something that isn't also a USR/3com product. "It must be your lines cause it's a 3com modem it's the best"... right... as I hook up some generic that actually works right under the same conditions.

Reality is, no one needs morality if there isn't enough to eat. Standards are established not by what works best but by what is ever the cheepest you can get away with.

If an emergency IT-related visit can be avoided via ondemand fail-over to dialup, then all is good, that's rather the point. The real world has people who don't have the forsight to actualy budget, practicaly filled with buggers who CAN'T remember their passwords, and could only afford /budget for the crap connection and expect it to work 24/7.

That's rather the nice thing about uClinux, some one who likes to play with linux can protype a solution. I would not be shocked at all if there was an ongoing HSRP project for future appliances due to the fact that the number of people willing to pay for the *real solution* are in the minority. It would be nice if everyone had the budget for what was the best, but reality is very diffrent.

And franky, I'd like to flog all those high paid consultents who actually deployed USR/3com modems without actually testing to see if they will even work with the host/client in question.

Obligatory Cynical Comment

[fm6]

So, on the one hand Actiontec thinks parents need to spy on their kids. On the other hand, it doesn't occur to them that enabling TELNET on the wAN side of a router is unsafe. Bloody typical.

What else can you do with it?

[-tji]

Being Linux based is cool and all, but what are the limits of the platform? How far can it be extended?

Based on the circuit board, I assume storage is pretty limited (single flash chip), and RAM is probably small.

Can the hardware be modified at all?? There is a header on one end of the board, what is that intended for? If it could handle CompactFlash, storage could be easily expanded.

Reading through the spec's for the Conexant "Network Processor", it seems the ARM core includes a USB controller. External USB storage could also be very nice (even USB1.0, if we're dealing with dial-up or DSL speeds).

- A simple reverse proxy / tcp forwarder could allow flexible inbound access.
- If storage is added, it could make a good smallscale personal mail server.
- Run snort on it for Intrusion Detection
- IPSec VPN termination?

Hmm.. that list looks kinda challenging for such a small device.. But, at low speeds none of those really need a lot of horsepower, just enough RAM to hold it, and storage to handle logs/spooling.

Not everybody has broadband

[wayward_son]

There are still areas of the country where broadband is not available. I live in a rural area and our local cable company (Northland Cable) has absolutely NO plans to offer internet service. Many people around here do not live within 3 miles of the phone company central office or R-DSLAM.

Before I got DSL, I did set up a Linux gateway with a Lucent 56k Winmodem. Not terribly easy to do, but the hardware is obscenely cheap.

you forgot something

[Anonymous Coward]

With 2 ethernet ports it could make a good firewall with dial up for remote administration. This might be a good at a site location that you do not always have physical access like a exec/ceo's house...

Actiontec as Cable/DSL Fallback or Daisy-Chained

[JeremyZJ]

Greg did some really great research, figuring out how to access the box.

The way that most of us would use the Actiontec is to plug it into our wired/wireless router/switch, just as we would our cable/dsl modem. This would use one 100Mbps ethernet port. This leaves one unused 100Mbps ethernet port.

Items that have not yet been mentioned:

1) One could connect the second 100Mbps ethernet port to a cable/dsl modem and, by modifying the Actiontec's software, use the 56k modem as a fallback internet connection. If the Actiontec notices that the connected cable/dsl modem has become unresponsive, it could dial-up an ISP using it's own 56k modem.

2) One could also daisy-chain N Actiontec's and (with software modifications) have an N * 56k connection. ( One will also need N distinct phone lines.)

Item #1 is probably the most interesting to most of us, but item #2 is not a bad feature either and would likely use similar code. If anyone out there explores either of these ideas, I'd like to hear more about it.

Re:Actiontec as Cable/DSL Fallback or Daisy-Chaine

[Damin]

Both sound like good ideas. I'm in favor of finding out more about the platform, and seeing if a completely customized uClinux can be made to boot on the box. If so, then everything else becomes easily possible.

Re:why not just buy a mini itx? (get a Soekris)

[markw365]

Just pick up a soekris if you want fun. :)