xDSL and Linux: Go Speed Racer! - page 2

Don't Let the Man Keep You Down: Grab the Power of DSL for Linux

Post-install of your service, you will most likely find that the technician has replaced your singular RJ-11 jack with a dual plug, one for RJ-11 POTS and one for ADSL. It is important to mark which is which in case the technician didn't already do so.

Depending on what distribution of Linux you use will determine your connectivity method. Most individual users will work with a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) connection, unless they've purchased a few static IP addresses, but different distributions use different programs for grabbing the DHCP address. Some distributions use the DHCPCD (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Client Daemon) for generating the necessary file for maintaining the DHCP state. Others use a program called pump.

While I have experience using both DHCPCD and pump, there are known issues with the pump program that will be addressed here.

In Red Hat 6.0, Mandrake 6.0, SuSE 6.0, and perhaps others, the pump program was broken, and as a result people had a difficult time accessing the internet via DHCP. At this point we told our clients to cd into the /sbin directory and type the following command:

mv pump-<version number> /sbin/~pump.old

then make a symbolic link to pump using dhcpcd (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Client Daemon) by typing the following:

ln -s /sbin/dhcpcd /sbin/pump

and hit Enter.

This will make the init levels use DHPCD instead of pump upon bootup. This will resolve issues when dealing with dropped lines or connections with ADSL as well.

I have heard that this issue has been dealt with in newer distributions. I use Slackware 7.0 and Linux-Mandrake 7.0, neither of which use the pump program.