Topic: Problems connecting to Shaw's cable internet service

[Mike Stoddart]

I just signed up with Shaw's cable internet service here in Calgary, and the tech installed the connection on my Win98 PC. I want to configure my E-Smith server (v4.0?) to use the cable connection, but no matter what I try, nothing works. I don't think that my server is managing to communicate with Shaw's dhcp server. The original Win98 PC works fine; it receives its dhcp settings and everything works ok. But no matter what I do, my E-Smith server will not connect to Shaw. Has anyone else managed to get their E-Smith server to connect to Shaw?

Thanks

[pkidd]

several times (once to Videon for a year, then to Shaw, then back to Videon, soon back to Shaw - a long story but not a problem to connect, first time every time!)
Videon required sending the account name and dhcp(option 1under External Interface Configuration), Shaw requires option 2, which only requires selecting option 2 and nothing else.  Option 1 requires a valid account name which with Videon was  videonxxxxxx .
I mention Videon only because Shaw just took them over and has been switching servers and service.  We're running ver 4.1.2 so far, but started with 4.0something.
Back to first things first, can you connect to the local network, that is you do have two ethernet cards and you're correctly identifying which is connected to what? (you can swap them in the configuration menus).

[Mike Stoddart]

Thanks for the reply. I must also add that I have a third PC with Win98 installed, which wont connect to Shaw either, even if I hard configure the gateway and dns servers. I don't have the admin console in front of me - what's option 2 again?

Thanks

[Mike Stoddart]

Oh I think I remember the menu options on the console. I tried both options - DHCP sending machine name and DHCP sending ethernet address. Neither worked.

[Joe]

Some ISPs check the MAC of the NIC when passing out DHCP info.  There was a guy here who had similar problems unless the ISP provided NIC was on the network, and powered up.  You might try putting the NIC from the win9x PC that works into the gateway box.

[Mike Stoddart]

I tried that, but I couldnt get the NIC to work in the other PCs. The Win98 box wouldnt recognise it - the device manager always had a yellow exclamation mark next to it.

The NIC is a USB based device, so it was easy to switch, but it means that E-Smith won't work with it.

Thanks

[Joe]

Well, there's a slim possibility you could get it to work, I know there is *some* support for USB NICs under Linux.  An easier solution might be to spoof (?) the USB MAC address.  I know it's possible to "change" the MAC address of your NIC under linux (I say "change" because you aren't actually changing the MAC, just telling the NIC to misreport it).  You might try that.  Or look for general Linux instructions, either from Shaw or the web.

[Mike Stoddart]

Ok, I got it working eventually, though I'm not sure what was done differently!

Now I have a new problem. When I try to send or receive email from Outlook on one of the Win98 clients, it says it can't connect to the Shaw email server.

Any ideas? Thanks

[Pete]

See question 1 in the following FAQ

http://clarkconnect.org/help/faq/tech.html

Cheers,
Pete

[Mike Stoddart]

Thanks for all your help.

[Chaloner Hale]

Change your mail server name to one of the following;

shawmail.cg.shawcable.net or
mail.cg.shawcable.net