[wplug] I did it, I ordered @home

[David Tessitor]

Well, as long as you keep an alternative pop3 or web based email account you can
satisfactorily get around their slow email delivery (sometimes its instantaneous
and others, such as afternoon and evening, it can be hours or occasionally
days/weeks late).  Aside from that inconvenience, last night I had a download
start out at over 500Kbytes/sec and eventually finish with an average of a
little under that.  That's definitely over 100 times faster than using a 56k
modem.

If you want to hook up more than one computer without using a firewall and
masquerading (just a hub), you can pay extra and get an extra name for each of
the other boxes.  Evidently, masquerading isn't @home's biggest concern.  The
worst abuse appears to be people putting servers online, as they recently put a
restriction on the upload rate (something like 16 or 64 KBytes/sec).

When @home put the service in here, the installer said that because the computer
had a multi-boot system (at that time dos - win3.11 - W95 - NT4), he wasn't
allowed to put in the nic card, perform the software installation, or even plug
in the computer to the modem.  When I mentioned possibly using Linux, I was told
@home does not provide technical support for it, and that the installers aren't
allowed to install nic cards or connect the modem to Linux boxes either.

However, he did give me simple instructions and walked me through the final
installation process as I configured W95 (or was it NT4?) while he stood by.  He
gave me the IP, mask, dns, etc. numbers which I had been assigned and explained
that the IP number is reassigned every week, though always to the same number.
I feel I was actually much better off getting the info and practice rather than
only having it installed for me once and not having a clue of how to do it
again.

NOTE:  @home supplies a nic card with your service and  you are entitled to
receive it even if for the above reasons the installer won't put it into the
computer for you.  If your installer is real nice, he/she will let you pick
which brand you want (mine did) if there is more than one on the truck.  They
seem to have all pci 10/100 cards so you might as well keep your $5 special in
its bag for now.  You can use it in one of the Unisys boxes for a firewall
setup.

If you want to use AT&T's internet software, the installation under MS is all
automatic.  I, however, didn't want to have a bunch AT&T software running things
(the big brother aversion, I guess) so I chose to do the simple hook up
procedure:  under the network settings, change the computer name to the one
which @home assigns; set the nic setting to dhcp (I believe everything else is
left as the default); then reboot.  That's about all it takes for the
connection.

(I seem to remember getting the setup to work once under NT by statically
assigning the IP numbers, etc., but it was such a hassle when I tried another
time that I've ended up just sticking with dhcp.  Static assignment didn't seem
to work at all with Linux, an least I could never get it to work the many times
I tried it.)

Setting up the email account -- The installer will give you the default account
name and password which @home assigns you (you can change them later).  The
outgoing and pop3 email setting for @home's service is "mail" (you should also
keep an outside account for more important, time sensitive email).  There's
directions somewhere on the excite homepage on how to add up to 7 user accounts
with 10MB of email storage each.  Each account has its own name and password and
each user setup can use these with their email setup.  (I use one @home account
for lists, another for personal email, and several outside (trfn.clpgh.org)
accounts for various separate organizations.)

For Linux, you have the option of an automatic connection on boot or setting
things up so you have to deliberately connect when you want to use the Internet
(more secure as it reduces exposure time).  Of course you can set up a firewall
and masquerading under either MS or Linux, (I put OpenBSD on one of the Unisys
boxes to eventually become my firewall).  If you have a firewall setup you'll
probably want to have it connected all the time.  (Doing a firewall most
securely is probably something that's better dealt with at an Installfest.)

Automatic connection using pump --> make sure you set the computer name as
"<assigned name>.home.com" (without the quotes, substituting in the name you
were assigned by @home).

If you want to make a manual connection every time under Linux, just have the
nic set as "disabled" at boot (the driver should still load itself).  Then
through a term window or console enter without the quotes the following
command:  "dhcpcd -h<assigned name> eth<n>" where <n> is the nic number.

Note the difference in the way the two methods refer to the computer name.
Pump, it seems, requires that the ".home.com" be appended while dhcpcd doesn't
want it.  --- That seems to have been the sticker which had kept me from
getting  "pump" to work automatically; I finally got it working but then haven't
used it, as I disabled the nic in order to make only manual connections.

That's it, and make sure you fasten your seatbelt if you start downloading files
from a fast server.

Dave

==========

Luquilla Hughes wrote:

> Well, I finally did it I ordered @home internet service from AT&T. I have a
> copy of win95 so they will come and set it up, but as you may have guessed,
> that is not my prefered OS. <G>. So I was wondering if anyone could point me
> to which Howto's I should be reading so I will be ready to switch over after
> they install it.
>
> I would also like to be able to network another machine in another room to
> the connected box so that my wife can connect from downstairs instead of
> having to go upstairs. (IOW, she would like to be able to get her email from
> the nursery. Instead of having to baby-proof the upstairs office.)
>
> I have 2 p166 compaq's (running win9x) with etherlink15xl cards(one upstairs
> one down). they should be 10mbps. Also a p133 running slackware(7.1) with
> 10/100 supported card(upstairs). I also have a $5 10mbps(supported) card
> ready to be put into the box going out to @home after the install guy
> leaves. I have not bought a hub/switch yet so I am open to suggestions.
>
> So I think all need after they connect is; patch cables, a hub, and a clue.
>
> Thanks in advance.
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