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Using a Cable or DSL Internet Connection in OS/2 Warp 4

By Dan Casey©January 2001 Oliver Rick's Warp Updates Site: http://home.knuut.de/orick/english/warpupdates.html

As a subscriber to various OS/2 related Mailing Lists as well as a regular reader of USENET OS/2 newsgroups, I've seen a recent flood of posts spread across all forums relating to connecting an OS/2 system to a broadband Cable or xDSL Internet Connection. Regardless of the forum, these posts all have the same basic theme:

Can I connect my OS/2 System to a Cable/DSL connection ... and how do I do it?

The answer to the 1st part of the question is "Most Likely, Yes!"

Most all Cable and DSL connections will work with OS/2. However, it's highly unlikely that you'll find an ISP that actually "Supports" OS/2. For actual OS/2 Support, your only recourse is the OS/2 Community, and the various forums for support that are available to OS/2 users everywhere.

In order to provide a definite answer, we'll need to know what protocols the ISP is using, and how they are assigning IP addresses to their customers. The standard protocol on the Internet is TCP/IP, and with very few exceptions, this is the protocol used by most all Internet Service Providers (ISP).

Unlike a Dial-Up connection, which uses a Point to Point Protocol (PPP) and a software package (the Dialer) to resolve the IP address, a Broadband connection is more like a LAN (Local Area Network) connection and thus uses different methods of assigning an IP address when you connect.

How IP Addresses are Assigned

In this case, your ISP assigns you an IP Address that belongs to you and you alone. Regardless of how many times you connect, disconnect and reconnect, you always have the same IP Address. The first step is to Open the TCP/IP Configuration (LAN) Notebook. Once you have that open, the first page you'll see allows you to Enable the Interface (in this case, Interface 0) and configure the IP Addresses.

• First step is to Highlight the top line (Interface 0) in the left column of the notebook page.
  
• Next, check the box that says "Enable Interface".
  
• Then, click on "Manually, using:"
  
• And type in the IP address your ISP has provided you.
  NOTE: I'm running 4 OS/2 systems on one Cable Connection to the Internet, and I have my own Router/Firewall setup, so the IP address shown in this example is assigned by my SYSADMIN (me).
  
• Next, Highlight the bottom selection, "loopback interface", in the left column of that page.
  
• Click on "Enable Interface", and then "Manually, using:" and type in the (default) IP Address: 127.0.0.1
  
• Next step is to set up the routing. Click on the Routing tab of the Notebook, and when the page changes, click on ADD to add a route.
  
  
  

• In the Route Entry window, Route Type, type in the letter "D" (without quotes) and press the <ENTER> key. It will automatically fill in the word "Default".
  
• In the Router Address Field, enter the IP address of the Default Router (or Gateway) that your ISP has assigned you.
  
• Click on "Add" to close the window.
  
• Next step is to configure the Nameservers (assigned by your ISP).
  Click on the tab "Hostnames" in the configuration notebook, and
  you'll see this screen:
  
  
  

• In the field: This Machine's Hostname: you'll need to enter the Hostname that your ISP has assigned you. In my case, the hostname is the alpha-numeric address of my Cable Modem provided by Comcast @Home.
  
• The next field is the "Local Domain Name", and this is the fully qualified (complete) name of the Domain of your local ISP. As you can see in my example, the domain I connect to is located in Beech Grove (bchgrv1.) Indiana (in.) on the @Home (home.com) network.
  
• Next step is to configure the DNS (Domain NameServers). Click on the empty box under Nameserver addresses (In this example, they are already filled in).
  
• Click on ADD, and type in the IP address of the DNS servers provided to you by your ISP. Most ISPs will have a Primary and a Backup (Secondary) DNS Server, and it's a good idea to add both of them.
  
• Basically, that's all you need to do to get started. Close the Settings Notebook, shutdown and re-boot and if all is well, you should be connected to the Internet. A good test is to try and PING an outside location, using the Domain Name. If you get a return, then everything is correctly setup. I usually use Hobbes for this test, as it is almost always "up".
  

If you're setup is correct, you should get the following:

[C:\]ping hobbes.nmsu.edu
PING hobbes.nmsu.edu: 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 128.123.3.50: icmp_seq=0. time=110. ms
64 bytes from 128.123.3.50: icmp_seq=1. time=90. ms
64 bytes from 128.123.3.50: icmp_seq=2. time=90. ms
64 bytes from 128.123.3.50: icmp_seq=3. time=100. ms

----hobbes.nmsu.edu PING Statistics----
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 90/97/110

PING 128.123.3.50

Dynamically Assigned IP Addresses

The most common methods of dynamically assigning an IP Address are:

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
PPPoE - Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet
PPtP - Point to Point tunneling Protocol

The second method, PPPoE, is rarely, if ever, used with a Cable connection. There are quite a few xDSL providers using this protocol, and if you happen to have an ISP using PPPoE, then you'll need a 3rd party utility such as the Injoy Firewall product. OS/2 Warp does not support PPPoE natively. If you don't need a full Firewall, then Injoy also has a PPPoE Standalone "Plug-In" that you can purchase.

The third method, PPtP, is a "Windows Thing". I've heard of a few xDSL providers that use it, and if you happen to have one of them as your ISP, then I'm afraid you're out of luck as there is no support (at this time) for PPtP in OS/2.

For the purposes of this article, we'll focus on DHCP.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have the updated TCP/IP components installed on your system. From an OS/2 command prompt, run INETVER:

[C:\]inetver
Inet Version: 4.02t

Next, open the TCP/IP LAN Configuration notebook, and look at the 1st page of that. If you're running Warp 4, it will look just like the 1st example screenshot above. However, if you're running eCS or the Convenience Pak release of Warp, it will look like the following screenshot.

As you can see, the Interface has been updated a bit, however the concept is the same. This is the same Interface that ships with Warp Server for eBusiness (WSeB).

Highlight LAN0, click on ENABLE Interface, and click on Automatically, Using DHCP. Do not check Also Using DDNS.

Enable the Loopback Interface just as you would for a Static connection, as instructed above.

That should be all you need to do to Setup your TCP/IP for DHCP.

You can monitor the DHCP client using the DHCP Monitor provided with Warp 4, the Convenience Pak, eCS and WSeB.