John Dolan, Viant Solutions

Viant's Award Winning Staff

I'm very proud to announce the latest award won by Viant personnel.  Richard recently entered three beers in the 15th Annual Peach State Brew Off.  One earned the Blue Ribbon, another a Red Ribbon, and the third wasn't all that bad either.  Richard competed against a number of Beer Clubs and came out ahead of them in his very first competition.  Needless to say I was quite impressed.  You can read more about Richard's brewing ventures on his blog.  You can see results of the Brew Off HERE!

AT&T DSL and Static IP's

Last week I did something I've never done before.  I set-up an AT&T DSL line with 5 static IP addresses behind an enterprise firewall (Astaro).  Setting-up multiple IP's behind a T1 is a walk in the park.  Behind a DSL line, not so much; unless of course, you know what to do.  Just know the average AT&T/Bell South tech will not be able to help you out very much as this just isn't something they encounter very often.

I wrongly assumed that once the Netopia modem/Router was put into bridged mode and the PPPoE info was put into Astaro firewall, the Astaro would be assigned the first of the Static IP Addresses with the appropriate subnet mask once.  This is not what happens.  If you do this, your firewall will be assigned a dynamic IP Address. 

After many support calls, support tickets, escalations and all the rest, I learned that when you have multiple IP Addresses, you can't set your Netopia router in bridged mode.  You use the Netopia in standard mode and then set it to pass the Static IP Addresses to the internal network.  Bell South will ensure that your statics are routed to your Netopia, and once it is configured as below, the Netopia will send a broadcast request to the internal side of your network to determine if/where it should route those packets.  So, you don't have to tell the Netopia where to route the packets, but you need to tell your firewall to receive them. 

Ok, enough delay, here is the documentation I received from Bell South for the configuration (if you need the associated images just let me know).

Configure Static IP on Bell South Moden/Router

I am certain this applies when configuring multiple IP addresses at a single location.  I do not think it applies when only one IP address is assigned.

1. Surf into the Netopia 3347W/3347NWG interface using the 192.168.1.254 address in a web browser and login.

NOTE: Depending on the firmware currently installed on the Netopia router there may or may not be a login prompt.

2. On the left hand side of the screen, click on the link that says Expert Mode.
3. Then click on Yes to proceed.
4. On this screen click on Configure from either link.
5. From here select LAN.
6. Type in first available IP address in your range as the LAN IP Address and type in the appropriate IP Netmask. For example - if your IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then your LAN IP will be 65.15.150.221 and the Netmask will be 255.255.255.248.
7. Click Submit.
8. Click on DHCP Server.
9. Type in the Starting IP Address and the Ending IP Address. For example, if the customer’s IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then the Starting IP Address will be 65.15.150.222 and the Ending IP Address will be 65.15.150.226.
10. Click Submit.

NOTE: If and only if the customer explicitly requests that the Netopia's DHCP server be disabled can the help desk do so. The customer should be made aware that doing so is a non-standard configuration for the Netopia, that support will be limited and that it may be necessary to temporailily re-enable DHCP in order to troubleshoot any problems with their DSL service. If the customer still wishes to have DHCP disabled document it in the call notes and proceed with the following steps:

JD Note:  I reccomend doing this

1. Choose Off from the Server Mode drop-down list.
2. Click the Submit button.

11. Click on WAN.
12. Click on PPP over Ethernet vcc1.
13. Uncheck the box next to Address Mapping (NAT).
14. Click Submit.
15. Click on Security.
16. Click on Stateful Inspection.
17. Click on Exposed Addresses.
18. Click the Add button.
19. Type in the first usable IP address and the last usable IP address of your IP range in the Start Address and End Address boxes. For example, if the customer’s IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then the Start Address will be 65.15.150.221 and the End Address will be 65.15.150.226. Leave Protocol set to Any.
20. Click Submit.
21. Click on the yellow Alert Button.
22. Click on Save and Restart.
23. Verify that the Netopia reflects the changes by renewing the IP address. The gateway and IP address should reflect the static IP information entered into the Netopia. If the changes didn't take, the process needs to be repeated. A reboot may be needed to refresh the IP if the renew command continues to be unsuccessful. 
24. Verify that the exposed IP addresses are now reachable by performing a ping command on the exposed IP addresses.

NOTE: If the ping returns all packets then the IP addresses have been exposed successfully. If the ping returns Request timed out or Ping request could not find host, then the IP addresses are not exposed properly and the process for exposing IP addresses needs to be done again. If the customer's IP address is still unreachable after performing these steps then check for the following:

• Go back to step 19 and type the full static IP range assigned to the customer instead of the usable IP range.   
• Verify customer's static IP addresses have been setup properly on Netopia.
• Verify customer is actually online.
• Check for firewall (software and hardware) and disable / unplug from the network.
• If possible isolate network down to just 1 computer and the Netopia to rule out 3rd Party CPE configuration conflicts (Routers, Switches, Hubs, Firewalls)

If unable to resolve the issue, escalate to Tier2 / Product Specialist.

XO Buyer beware

It's hard to know how good a relationship is until you have your first fight.  That's when everything comes to the surface.  Do they really care, or are they simply providing lip service.  The same is true of a phone/data vendor.  You never know how good they are until you have your first set of issues.  If someone tells you how great a phone vendor is because they've never had any issues, don't pay them any attention.  They are still in the honey moon phase.

One of my clients just moved to a new location.  They decided on XO as their phone/data vendor.  I can't tell you enough how grately I regret that decision.  XO has provided some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced.  The Data line was over a week late, and they still haven't completed the port of the phone numbers which they had weeks in advance!

Through it all they demonstrated no sense of urgency, no desire to go the extra mile and no desire to make any effort to make it right.  A great example is that when we pointed out that based on the timeframe they explained, we should have the line live on Monday rather than Wednesday, it took about 4 emails before they finally came out and said "we don't work weekends."  After 3 urgent requests to have a Reverse DNS entry set-up, they finally responded with an 800 number to call and provided an incorrect account number to reference.

All of the phone lines still haven't ported over and they are still asking if dates 1 week out "will be convenient for us."  No it's not convenient!  Can you at least demonstrate that you understand the pain we are in?  I would love to post the emails I've received from them, but I'm cocerned about legality, so I'll just leave you with a friendly caution.  I would rather have BellSouth DSL with one analog line before using a T1 and PRI from XO.  Buyer beware.