Howto: Siemens Gigaset SE567 Bridge Mode and PPPoE

Well after about 6 years of rockin a Dlink DSL-504 I decided to upgrade. The previous modem has worked very well, sure it degraded and lost all but 1 of its Ethernet ports… but I ran a fantastic European firmware on it for years and had it perfectly tuned. Too bad I could never get the stupid thing to bridge… The strange thing about this device is it started to block certain websites. I was very confused on this one for months! First I thought that it was my server, but everything seemed to check out. Then I learned only a few particular computers would be blocked. This really messed things up! How does this happen?! Then I was 99.99% certain it was Frontier Internet. So I left it at that. But since this DSL modem is so old I decided to upgrade. I called up Frontier and asked specifically for a modem that was NOT wireless, but they sent me the Siemens Gigaset SE567 one anyways. Plus a really lame monthly modem rental charge. What happened to free modems?! These “Internet” companies are getting savage! Either way, on to what I found about bridging this modem, and oh yes, it CAN be done!

From testing this device, I found that 1. The wireless sucks, 2. This modem will not bridge and do PPPoE at the same time. So the first thing to do would be to get a client that can do PPPoE. I used my server, but any router, whether it is wireless or not, should do the job just fine.  I will explain how to setup Linux below as well.

This is with Frontier Communications personalized firmware:

1.  Attach your computer directly to a LAN port on the modem and log in as admin to the modem interface.
2. Click on ‘ISP Connection.’
3. Click ‘Advanced Settings’, then click ‘Configure the ATM Virtual Circuit.’
4. Click ‘Add a New VC.’
5. Set the VPI to 0 and the VCI to 35 (These could be different, check with the previously used VC to confirm). Click ‘Next.’
6. Select ‘RFC-2684 Bridged’ and Click Next.
7. Enter a name for the connection (or just leave the default) and click Next then click Finish.
8. Delete all of the VCs except the one you just created. (you can always restore defaults)
9. Make sure the new VC is Enabled and Reboot the modem.

You now have a basic modem with no more annoying second NAT. Another reason is if you have a server, it is good to get your outside IP address directly to your computer and have your beefy firewall take care of everything.   At this point, acquire a router and plug it into the modem. Set it up for PPPoE and enter your credentials. You should be connected to the Internet!

Now to make this work on Linux, you need a package called rp-pppoe. For Fedora 9 as root you can install it as follows:

yum install rp-pppoe

This will install the proper package. From then, there are 2 ways to setup the PPPoE connection. Graphically or through the command prompt. I did this graphically and that is what I will explain, but I know that there is a script at /sbin/pppoe-setup that is a good starting point.
To setup the PPPoE connection go to ‘System” -> ‘Administration’ -> ‘Network’. From there, edit the Ethernet card that the DSL modem is connected to (typically eth0). Set the card to ‘Staticly Set Ip Addresses’ and leave all of the fields blank. Click Ok, then ‘Deactivate’ and ‘Activate’ the device, saving all changes.
To insert the PPPoE connection:

1. Click ‘New’, Select xDSL connection, Forward.
2. Select the blanked out Ethernet device from earlier, Enter provider name (Frontier), Account type Normal, and your credentials, Forward
3. Then click Apply

After that, this is all you need for a simple PPPoE connection. To further configure it, open up the configuration on the xDSL connection and head over to the advanced tab. In this tab, make sure ‘Restart if connection dies’ and ‘Make this connection the default route’ are checked. You may also check ‘Use synchronous PPP’ but not all providers support this so I would test for this function later. After this, go back to the General tab and check ‘Activate device when computer starts’ only if you want to. And if you run your own DNS, uncheck ‘Automatically obtain DNS information from provider’.

There! Now watch your messages log when you first connect to make sure no errors pop up. You can do this by running this command in terminal:

tail -f /var/log/messages

This will give you live updates of your messages log. If you have problems, you may want to check to see if you bridged the modem correctly. To do this, issue this command in terminal:

pppoe -I eth0 -A

Of course, replace eth0 with whatever Ethernet port is connected to your Modem. What this command will do is query your service providers servers for a connection route. You should get an output as such:

Access-Concentrator: SERVER.SERVER.AC
Got a cookie: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
AC-Ethernet-Address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
--------------------------------------------------

Of course, yours will be different. If you do not get anything like this, or you get a “pppoe: Timeout waiting for PADO packets” error, then it may be wise to go back and check the configuration of your modem.

Enjoy and happy PPPoE’ing! =)

Sources:
Siemens Gigaset SE567 Port Forward Problems
PPPOE setup on Fedora Linux