Upon reading about NAT and PAT, I decided it would be cool to use a Cisco router to share my cable modem internet connection on my home LAN, instead of using a Win2K computer with 2 NICs running Internet Connection Sharing (ICS).
So I went ahead and bought a Cisco 2514 (2 ethernet/AUI ports, 2 WAN serial ports, 16MB RAM/16MB Flash) from eBay. Two days later I received the router and proceeded to hook up my LAN and configure the router.
[Internet/ Adelphia ]
>[Toshiba cable modem]
>[Cisco 2514]
>[hub/ home LAN]
At first, I tried to get a dynamic public IP from Adelphia by setting “ip address dhcp” on Ethernet 0. However, it wouldn’t recognize the command and realized I had to upgrade my IOS from 12.0(18b) to IOS 12.2(1d). After successfully setting up a TFTP server and installing the newer IOS, I was able to setup eth0 to obtain an IP address via DHCP, but I kept getting a private address 10.x.x.x . But whenever I hooked up a PC directly to the cable modem, I would always get a public IP address 24.x.x.x . I tried two different PCs with two different NICs, and always the same result.
“WTF?”, I thought to myself. Perhaps Adelphia recognizes the OUI portion of my int eth0 MAC address as belonging to Cisco, and would only allocate a private address to it. Perhaps Adelphia had something against their customers using Cisco equipment. I therefore cloned a NIC’s MAC address from a PC onto the router’s eth0 using the “mac-address xxxx.xxxx.xxxx” command. I tried MAC addresses from two other NICs, but to no avail. Eth0 would still only get a private address assigned. Frustrated, I gave Adelphia a call to find out if they were doing anything at their end to purposely give us Cisco wannabe types a hard time.
I spoke with a Level I tech, and he gave me the usual “we don’t support routers” and other CPE. I explained my problem how I was only able to get a private address from their DHCP server and wondered if they had a policy against customers setting up a home LAN and sharing our internet connection through Cisco equipment. I was promptly transferred to a Level II tech. The Level II tech said it is ok for Adelphia customers to have more than one computer share a connection, and that they could give a rat’s ass as to what type of router we use to perform connection sharing. The only thing they care about is their customers aren’t setting up any servers, and the only MAC address they keep track of is your cable modem’s. He assured me that they have nothing against us using Cisco routers and has no idea why I’m getting a private address. He placed me on hold and came back on telling me he just asked someone about my problem, and said it is a Cisco incompatibility… something about DHCP “option 60” whatever that means. The tech suggested I contact Cisco.
I searched the internet regarding “option 60” and stumbled upon a forum discussion indicating that I should upgrade to an even newer IOS. Hence, I fired up the TFTP server again and installed IOS 12.2(24) [c2500-ik8os-l.122-24.bin]. With this upgrade, I was finally able to obtain a public IP on Ethernet 0. I still don’t understand all this “option 60” stuff
: , but at least I’m getting a public IP now.
Next, I had to install IP NAT. Let me just say that Cisco’s NAT terminology is utterly confusing to say the least. “Inside global,” “outside global,” “inside local,” “outside local”…. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ! What the heck are they trying to say? At least once I started configuring, all I had to know was “ip nat inside” and “ip nat outside”. Simple enough... or so I thought.
I set eth0 to ip nat outside, and set eth1 to ip nat inside. I then did the Ethernet0 overload thing and setup my access list. I was sure I did everything right; however, I was unable to ping from a host on my lan to the outside world (such as Cisco at 198.x.x.x). I could reach Cisco while I was on the router, but couldn’t on my LAN. So I fiddled and fiddled with my access list, checked “sho ip route”, “sho ip nat translations”, “sho ip nat statistics”, “sho dhcp lease”, “sho dhcp server”, “sho run”, did “copy run start” alot, did a bunch of reloads, and went on pinging and tracerouting everything, over and over.
This went on for hours until I noticed a line near the top of my config that said, “no ip routing”.
OMG!! Ahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I don’t know if I was laughing with glee or crying. Once I enabled ip routing, everything worked fine. Y’know, I was wondering why my route table looked different than the one in my Sybex CCNA book. I just figured it might be because my IOS version was different.
Well, after days of trying, I finally got this router setup and running properly.
It would have been quicker and less trouble if I simply bought a Linksys router for $50 at Best Buy and be done with it (which in fact did cross my mind), but I wouldn't learn anything.
I tried configmaker, but the version I had didn’t support “ip address DHCP.” Even my buddy who was CCNA came over, but he was not much help.
In all, it was an excruciating experience, yet educational.
