Hi there
(to all of you who are patiently following my efforts to connect
to my new cable-modem based Internet Provider).

I spoke to a guy in the support today and we managed to establish
a connection from my machine to the BIG net, but it is not
perfect :-(

First he told me, that the cable-modem I got acts as a bridge
between mine and the providers networks. Second, the gateway
is running Linux OS. I did not get the version or number but
have asked for it in a meesage I sent to the provider with
various configurations and traces.

The problem boils down to that it is impossible for me to make
a connection unless both me and my internet provider first
make a permanent entry in our ARP-caches for each others NIC.
In other words, the ARP-request/reply sequence does not work
despite the ARP-requests look OK. Mind you, my ARP-requests
are replied if sent from a Windows PC.

Does anybody know of such a problem?

However it is very inconvenient to use static ARP-entries as
neither me nor my internet provider are able to exchange
equipment without leaving my connection useless until we have
agreed on a new re-configuration.

I noticed another minor but annoying problem, which I think
is purely NetBSD related: When I want to connect to the 
Internet I have to telnet to a telnet server and issue a
login sequence, before I get admittance. I connect to the server
using the command 'telnet 192.168.30.2 259', but I do first
get a connection after several minutes delay. I guess what
happens is some kind of DNS-request, which is eventually timed
out. I have the same sort of delay when I do a 'netstat -r'.

I have noticed that the only way I can get the delay to disappear
is changing my /etc/resolv.conf file to contain only
'lookup file'. From what I can read in the man pages
'lookup file bind' should make sure that a DNS-request is
first looked up in the /etc/hosts file before asking the
DNS-server. But appearently the DNS-server is alway asked first
when bind is mentioned in the lookup-option, no matter if it
is in front of or after file. Is this a bug in NetBSD?

I do not have a local named-server running. Is this mandatory
in order to use the 'lookup bind' option?

Why does the 'telnet 192.168.30.2 259' take so long to execute?
I think it should not be necessary to do any DNS-lookup?

My /etc/resolv.conf file looks like:

# lookup	file
domain	stofanet.dk
lookup	file bind
# nameserver	193.162.146.9
# nameserver	193.162.153.131
nameserver	212.10.10.4
nameserver	212.10.10.5

Best regards
   Ib-Michael
-- 
Ib-Michael Martinsen		Email at work: dtpimm@dsg.dk
Fidomail:      2:234/181.9	Email at home: imm@nethotel.dk

Running NetBSD/arm32 v1.3.2 on an Acorn RiscPC with a 202MHz StrongArm.