Hello folks,
I was in Mumbai recently and thought of getting an additional internet connection to have better redundancy. For all those who are MTNL's religious followers, I decided to minimize the use of their connection primarily because of their lack of support ( 2 months of horror ) and ADSL is extremely sensitive to noise. MTNL's plans are also pretty costly as compared to Reliance's. Reliance provides connectivity through cat5e fiber in my area ( Andheri West ). They also provide ADSL connections but only in certain areas.
I did have a Reliance connection but I disconnected it primarily due to the haphazard nature of their service and lack of reliability. But now they have professionalized their customer support ( atleast yelling at times yields extremely good results ). They have also improved the reliability of their network - they have battery backups and all :P Previously they relied on the horrible WAN setup by BSES powersurfer.
Coming to the technical aspect of this thread, they have a really annoying login system ( which is a big security threat as well ). They basically rely on their DNS servers to authenticate the user. For example, if I'm not logged in and I type google.com, their DNS server returns an internal IP ( 10.x.x.x ) and they issue a 302 redirect so the browser is redirected to a login page. This is where you enter your credentials and you get logged in. This is a very annoying method of logging in the user but now-a-days many ISPs prefer it! On Linux you have the option of using a script called AutoLogin to keep you logged in 24x7.
Heres the gotcha! This connection wouldn't work when I connected it to the WAN port of my wireless router ( Netgear WGR614v5 ). The problem was / is that when my router gets the IP and DNS information from the DHCP server, it ends up with 4 DNS servers but it remembers only 2 =P The first two are vanilla DNS servers while the last two take care of redirecting and logging in the user. So the router was querying the vanilla DNS servers and it never redirected me to the login page.
They also have MAC address binding in place =P
Dinesh Joshi wrote:
Coming to the technical aspect of this thread, they have a really annoying login system ( which is a big security threat as well ). They basically rely on their DNS servers to authenticate the user. For example, if I'm not logged in and I type google.com, their DNS server returns an internal IP ( 10.x.x.x ) and they issue a 302 redirect so the browser is redirected to a login page. This is where you enter your credentials and you get logged in. This is a very annoying method of logging in the user but now-a-days many ISPs prefer it! On Linux you have the option of using a script called AutoLogin to keep you logged in 24x7.
Heres the gotcha! This connection wouldn't work when I connected it to the WAN port of my wireless router ( Netgear WGR614v5 ). The problem was / is that when my router gets the IP and DNS information from the DHCP server, it ends up with 4 DNS servers but it remembers only 2 =P The first two are vanilla DNS servers while the last two take care of redirecting and logging in the user. So the router was querying the vanilla DNS servers and it never redirected me to the login page.
They also have MAC address binding in place =P
Try this out. Set your router's MAC to the desktop MAC and use dhcp in the router's WAN. Let your router's LAN be a regular local LAN. In your desktop, setup a static IP of the LAN network. In your desktop DNS settings use the 4 DNS server entries in the same order as would be without the router. The procedure to log you on should work just the same. Once you are logged in, others in the LAN can use the net directly as they would in a router.
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Dinesh Joshi wrote: Try this out. Set your router's MAC to the desktop MAC and use dhcp in the router's WAN. Let your router's LAN be a regular local LAN. In your desktop, setup a static IP of the LAN network. In your desktop DNS settings use the 4 DNS server entries in the same order as would be without the router. The procedure to log you on should work just the same. Once you are logged in, others in the LAN can use the net directly as they would in a router.
The whole point of having the router and DHCP is to avoid manual configuration. Unfortunately most routers support either 2 or at most 3 DNS server entries. If the DNS servers are correctly set in the router then theres no problem in logging in.
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:28 AM, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Rony wrote:
Dinesh Joshi wrote: Try this out. Set your router's MAC to the desktop MAC and use dhcp in the router's WAN. Let your router's LAN be a regular local LAN. In your desktop, setup a static IP of the LAN network. In your desktop DNS settings use the 4 DNS server entries in the same order as would be without the router. The procedure to log you on should work just the same. Once you are logged in, others in the LAN can use the net directly as they would in a router.
The whole point of having the router and DHCP is to avoid manual configuration. Unfortunately most routers support either 2 or at most 3 DNS server entries. If the DNS servers are correctly set in the router then theres no problem in logging in.
Did you try cloning the MAC of the desktop to the router? I noticed in the other case where Reliance wimax had 4 dns entries but after changing the mac of the router, it was able to connect properly. The router was a Netgear one.
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 4:19 AM, Dinesh Joshi dinesh.a.joshi@gmail.comwrote:
Heres the gotcha! This connection wouldn't work when I connected it to the WAN port of my wireless router ( Netgear WGR614v5 ). The problem
well the wimax service reliance has terminates into a wlan box at my home. it works for me. does 302 redir to auth page and lets us login without any dns issues
was / is that when my router gets the IP and DNS information from the DHCP server, it ends up with 4 DNS servers but it remembers only 2 =P The first two are vanilla DNS servers while the last two take care of redirecting and logging in the user. So the router was querying the vanilla DNS servers and it never redirected me to the login page.
Harsh Busa wrote:
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 4:19 AM, Dinesh Joshi dinesh.a.joshi@gmail.comwrote:
Heres the gotcha! This connection wouldn't work when I connected it to the WAN port of my wireless router ( Netgear WGR614v5 ). The problem
well the wimax service reliance has terminates into a wlan box at my home. it works for me. does 302 redir to auth page and lets us login without any dns issues
He is using a direct connection, not wimax. However I do recollect now that at a client's place where wimax was used, when the mac id of the router was not the bound one, the DHCP of the WAN would set different DNS servers than the ones set in the bound mac of the desktop. After simply changing the MAC of the router to that of the desktop, the client was able to login from the desktop via the router.
On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:19 AM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:
Harsh Busa wrote:
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 4:19 AM, Dinesh Joshi <dinesh.a.joshi@gmail.com wrote:
Heres the gotcha! This connection wouldn't work when I connected it to the WAN port of my wireless router ( Netgear WGR614v5 ). The problem
well the wimax service reliance has terminates into a wlan box at my
home.
it works for me. does 302 redir to auth page and lets us login without
any
dns issues
He is using a direct connection, not wimax. However I do recollect now that at a client's place where wimax was used, when the mac id of the router was not the bound one, the DHCP of the WAN would set different DNS servers than the ones set in the bound mac of the desktop. After simply changing the MAC of the router to that of the desktop, the client was able to login from the desktop via the router.
upgrade to wimax. so that u dont depend on mercy of rats not eating ur
cables :P :-)
-- Regards,
Rony.
GNU/Linux ! No Viruses No Spyware Only Freedom.
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Dinesh Joshi -
Harsh Busa -
Rony -
Rony Bill