Quozl's DiRECWAY DW6000 on Linux

Introduction

Summary

• interface is by RJ45 ethernet cable, no special drivers required,
• the router's IP address is 192.168.0.1,
• the router provides a DHCP service,
• the service is NAT'd; connections to your system are not possible, unless mediated by something you connect to like a tunnel,
• PPTP does not work,
• OpenVPN and SSH work fine,
• latency is very high, average 1200ms,
• 512kbit/sec down, 128kbit/sec up, 500Mb per month limited,
• download limit monitoring is possible, though not easy,
• occasional operational problems occur.

Prerequisites

1. Linux distribution: Debian GNU/Linux Sarge

   (it is likely that any distribution version will work)

2. Linux kernel: 2.6.11

   (it is likely that any kernel version will work)

3. Linux packages (mandatory): none

   (nothing is required that isn't generally already included)

4. Linux packages (optional): dhcp-client

   (while a DHCP client might be useful, you can configure your network interface with an static IP address of 192.168.0.2 and a gateway of .1 and be up and running immediately)

Configuring

1. optionally install an extra ethernet card; performance is not critical, Quozl chose an RTL8139,

2. connect system to DW6000; using either a crossover or straight-through Cat-5 cable, the blue LAN LED on the front of the DW6000 should light, along with the green and orange LEDs on the back of the unit,

3. if you have a DHCP client configured, you can immediately try to access the 'net, otherwise configure the network interface, add a default route, and then try.

Costs

1. $AUD 129 installation including the DW6000, HiBIS funded,
2. $AUD 90 per month for the service, unlimited hours, 500Mb data limit.

Problems

1. connection reset by peer.

   Long lasting connections, such as SSH connections to remote systems, may occasionally be affected by an apparently spontaneous connection reset by peer error. Packet tracing shows a RST packet received, allegedly from the peer.

   TODO: determine if the peer generates the packet or not.

2. occasional total outage.

   Two outages have occurred, which appear to have been due to Telstra's end-point equipment. These were resolved by calling the support line.

3. PPTP VPN does not work.

   Trying to establish a PPTP based VPN does not work. The TCP port 1723 connection is established fine, but the GRE packets are not exchanged. The result is a connection timeout. There's no technical reason why it could not work; it may be a business decision by DirecWay to provide service differentiated. On the other hand, OpenVPN over UDP works fine.

4. access download usage very slow.

   Obtaining your download usage takes a very long time, because the Bigpond pages do a lot of redirects.

5. connections assumed to be successful.

   The router forges connection acceptance packets, presumably in order to remove one round trip from TCP connections. You can test this by attempting a connection to a known not-listening port on a server while monitoring packets on the interface.

   SYN -->
       <-- SYN ACK  (forged)
   ACK -->
   

References

• none yet

ChangeLog