HOW TO CONFIGURE YOUR aDSL MODEM
-OR-
THE INSTRUCTION BOOK SASKTEL DOESNT GIVE
by Kamikaze

Hey there.  I'm sure no one has ever heard of me.  That's cool.  I'm from
a little town, and I've been just hangin low, being quiet about my interests.
I've started writing a few filez before, but never got around to submitting
them anywhere, but that's fine.  I dont look for recognition or anything
like that.  Actually I'd prefer if no one knew who I was.  Anyway, enough
about me, lets get to the aDSL modem configuration.

I was lookin around behind our local Sasktel building, and I found a book
that had a picture of my aDSL modem on it.  I scooped it and was amazed at
the stuff in it.  No one had even suggested that it was possible to do many
of the things in it.  I had no fucking idea that my modem had a web-based
configuration interface...

HOW TO ACCESS IT

Well, this is a little complicated but not really.. You might not have to do
some of the steps, and you might have to do others, but this is exactly how
I did mine :)  It was referred to in the book as a 'Ping-of-Life Procedure'.

1) arp -a -N <interface IP>

This will show you all the IP addresses in the ARP cache for your hi-speed
interface.  Since the aDSL modem is made to simply plug in to an ethernet
card, there shouldn't be more than one address in the ARP cache for that
device, but your mileage may vary.

2) arp -s <modem IP> 01-90-D0-80-01-01 -N <interface IP>

This gives your modem an IP address for you to connect to.  It defaults
to 10.0.0.138 but I had to do this anyway to actually connect to it.
01-90-D0-80-01-01 is a special MAC address that the Alcatel aDSL modem
will respond to.

3) arp -a -N <interface IP>

This allows you to verify that the address was added to the cache.
You should see something like:

Interface: 10.10.16.192 on Interface 2
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  10.0.0.138            01-90-D0-80-01-01     static

4) Now switch off your modem.  Ok... now wait... wait a bit more...  Now
turn it back on.  The Power/Sync light should flash for about 30 seconds.
After it turns green.

5) ping <modem IP>

This will assign the IP address to the aDSL box.  Lotsa people will try and
say "Hey, ping just sees if a connection is active, not gives out IP
addresses."  But trust me, this is exactly what it does.  Since the IP
address is in the ARP cache, it will be sent to 01-90-D0-80-01-01, k?  The
modem is made to configure itself based on what ping packets reach that
address.  It's confusing but it's how it works.

6) arp -d <modem IP> -n <interface IP>

You don't have to do this if you don't want to...  It clears the modem's IP
out of the ARP cache.. This will work either way.

7) Start your web browser, and type http://<modem ip>.  The welcome page
appears and you can continue configuring your box.  Maybe later I will
write a file about what each thing does in the configuration box, but i'm
feeling tired...

Cheers to y'all...

12/19/1999