Motel routing server no longer connects to ISP

P

PeteZ

Hi,

I apologize in advance for the general nature of this question and the lack of specific information, but this is all I have to go on so far.

A local motel switched ISPs and the new ISP called me in as an outside contractor to rectify a problem. The motel inherited an old system and has zero knowledge of it and no access to the person who originally set it up.

I have enough knowledge of linux to be dangerous... :\

The problem:
The system works fine with the old ISP's bandwidth supplied via ethernet, but when the ethernet cable is switched to the new ISP's modem you get no connection. I have verified that I can connect to the internet via the new ISP's feed. Their expectation was that all they would have to do is swap ethernet cables and all would be well.

Current configuration:
The feed form the ISP model comes via ethernet to one of 4 NIC cards in a computer running FreeBSD. The other 3 NIC cards appear to serve 2 wireless access points and a hardwired switch. (Presumably one WAP is guest and the other WAP and switch are private motel network.) The purpose of the FreeBSD box appears to be to separate to public and guest networks, and to serve the splash page and login for the guest network which provides wireless to motel guests.

Things tried:
I have root access to the FreeBSD box (thanks to a post-it note o the bottom of the box, lol) but nothing else for documentation. I didn't get the version number of the installation (sorry). It appears to be running a gateway program called GW or similar. I was able to fine .conf files in /etc/ such as rc.conf but they didn't have information in them that helped solve the problem.

I'm not sure what the FreeBSD bbox with 4 NIC cards is looking for, but suspected it is looking for a specific IP address on the modem/router supplying bandwidth. The problem is that the old ISP's modem is not accessible via default IP address and login, so I can't figure out how it is configured and copy the settings to the new ISP's medem/router. (One is cable modem, one is DSL, so the old on can't be used.) I could gain access to it by resetting the old ISP's modem/router but then and custom config would be lost-so that's no help. I tried various common IPs for the new modem/router, tried disabling DHCP, none of which worked. I tried to find some .conf setting in the FreeBSD box, but nothing that was helpful to me.

----

Does any of this ring a bell enough to point me in the correct direction?

Thanks, Pete
 
PeteZ said:
...
I'm not sure what the FreeBSD bbox with 4 NIC cards is looking for, but suspected...
Click to expand...

Connect the box via the old ISP, log in as root, and enter the following command:

# ifconfig

The output of this will tell you all about the current interface configuration, that you need to know for the next steps.

Now, find out, what kind of connection the new ISP offers, fixed IP or DHCP. One important thing nowadays is, that many ISP modems come pre-configured as a router, check this. If the FreeBSD Box should be the router, then either disable NAPT mode of the modem or turn the FreeBSD box into a client.

The next step would be to configure the interfaces in /etc/rc.conf according to your findings. For a DHCP WAN + fixed LAN setup, this section would read somehow like this:

Code: 
...
ifconfig_xyz0="SYNCDHCP"
ifconfig_xyz1="inet 192.168.0.1/27"
ifconfig_xyz2="inet 192.168.0.33/27"
ifconfig_xyz3="inet 192.168.0.65/27"
...

Replace xyzN with the exact NIC name which is informed by the output of the ifconfig command.
 
Thank you!

I will report back after someone is able to go there, run ipconfig, and check these things.

I suspect that NAPT is enabled and is causing the problem.

The ISP can be configured for either a static or dynamic IP.
 
PeteZ said:
... to go there, run ipconfig, and check ...
Click to expand...

The command is ifconfig, i.e. short form of interface configuration, ipconfig does not exist.

The ISP can be configured for either a static or dynamic IP.
Click to expand...

FreeBSD can perfectly do both, so you may choose the option which fits best to the intended use of the installation.
 
They finally got back to me today, and I will assist them in checking what you suggested tomorrow morning. Hopefully I can just turn off the routing on the ISP's modem and FreeBSD will take it from there. I'll post back results. Thanks!
 
Post up what is in /etc/rc.conf along with the results of [cmd=]ifconfig[/cmd] and hopefully it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what needs to change to get it up and running again.

I would also be interested to see what the output of the command [cmd=]uname -a[/cmd] is as well. If this is one of those "set it and forget it" systems like it sounds it could be very old. It might be beyond what you've been hired to fix but would be a good idea to do your due diligence and warn them if they are using EOL software with known vulnerabilities.
 
Will do. I expect you are correct. It's been sitting and spinning on its own for years. Thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top