On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 03:30:30PM -0500, Bob Underwood wrote: > On Monday 31 December 2001 14:59, Ray wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 06:36:17PM -0500, Bob Underwood wrote: > > > I had a phone call from my Cable ISP the other day, stating that I should > > > reconfigure my computer or risk losing connectivity. The web site they > > > pointed me to is a windows site, basic config stuff. Later phone call to > > > tech service (level one and level two) confirms they are going to start > > > checking the MAC addy of the modem as opposed to my previous @home > > > username, etc. Level one actually told me that my choices are to either > > > find a new ISP or use windows. > > > > > > Is there a way to pass the modem MAC address along to the network in the > > > ifconfig? If so, how would I do that? > > > > I take it this is an internal cable modem? Do you have the option to > > switch to an external unit that connects to your system via a standard > > ethernet card? > > It is an external modem. > > Doesn't the modem pass the mac address along as part of the protocol? > Someone suggested this to me in a mail that show up on the list.
All of the MAC addresses on your side of the cable modem including the your ethernet card and your cable modem's ethernet port are available to the cable modem without any changes on your part. My guess is that the tech support either didn't know what they were talking about or didn't do a good job communicating this info to you. I think it's more likely that what they really want is for the cable modem to pass along YOUR MAC address (ie. the MAC of your ethernet card, not the modem's) to verify that you are not trying to use the service with more than one computer without paying extra. Doing that MIGHT require changing some setting on the cable modem and their instructions might involve using some sort of Windows only tool to configure the cable modem however the cable modems I've seen (admitadly just a few) have all had a web based config tool built in that you could access by pointing your web browser at http://your_modems_ip_address/. It could also be that your modem is already passing along the relivent MAC address however it is not in their database either because they need you to tell them what your MAC address (via a beb based form maybe) or because you've changed computers or net cards since signing up for the service. If the above doesn't make any sense maybe you could post the link to the page they sent you to and someone here could try to work out what they REALLY want from you. -- Ray
