[Nottingham] Broadband - where does the cable modem need to go?

[Robert Davies]

On Thursday 13 March 2003 15:21, D Luff wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm getting NTL broadband installed in about an hour or so (the 128Kbs
> variety since I'm a tight git !) and apparently the chap wants to run a
> chunky great cable through the house to where the computer is.  I presume
> that's where he wants to site the cable modem.  Is there any necessity to
> site the modem by the computer, or can it just go where the cable enters
> the house to leave me to wire it up with ethernet cable at my leisure? 
> Recomendations?

You get a fairly chunky white box on the wall, so try to have them site it 
unobtrusively.  There's about  2.5m of thick TV style cable to the modem, 
then you have a normal T/P Ethernet cable, with again about the same length 
of 10BaseT cable.

The Engineer will leave you to wire it up at your leisure, they tell you not 
to try it out for 30 mins or so, my theory is the dude wants to be well 
clear, of any 'software installation issues'!

> I'd also be keen to know if there's any must-do's on the security front
> before leaving the connection on - I'm a Linux newbie and not entirely sure
> of how secure the box is/should be out-of-the-box.  (Libranet 2.0 -
> basically Debian Woody/Sarge with a nice installer).

Yes, use some sort of IP Tables firewall, but take care to not scupper the 
DHCP which relies on broadcasts to 255.255.255.255 and the NTL UBR's relay on 
(IIRC) DHCP broadcasts from their DHCP servers.

Pages to help you :

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/theclam/Linux/howto.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/

You can keep a dialup account if you have one and register a new account, I 
switched to 0845- as a fallback, in event of expected problems which of 
course *touches wood* have (maybe due to this insurance policy) never 
materialised.

It'll be a breeze, so long as you don't mess with USB :)

Rob