[svlug] Pac Bell DSL and PPPoE

[William Black]

The only thing that DHCP won't give you by default is
timing-out connections (IIRC) and forcing you to put
in userid/password (if you have kids and don't want
them to arbitrarily get on the Internet, e.g.).  The
former is a plus for the ISP while the latter is
(arguably) a plus for the customer.

As for CPU usage, ask an average Windoze user who had
a HSP modem whether they care ;-)

--bj

--- Ray Olszewski <ray at comarre.com> wrote:
> As far as I can see, DHCP address leasing has all
> these same attributes
> (whether they are "benefits" or burdens depends on
> your POV) without
> imposing the serious performance hit (at least under
> Linux - does anyone
> know if PPPoE consumes as many CPU cycles under
> Windows as it does under
> Linux?) that PPPoE delivers. 
> 
> And relevant to the alleged advantage of "your
> system should be somewhat
> more secure " ... PPPoE also makes firewall updating
> (with a lease change)
> more difficult -- standard Linux DHCP clients (e.g.,
> dhcpcd) have a facility
> that lets you restart the firewall in response to a
> lease change, but I
> don't believe PPPoE (at least not the RP package)
> has anything similar.
> 
> Or am I missing something? It really seems to me
> that PPPoE isn't well
> designed for setups that are on 24/7, even though
> 24/7 service is what all
> the DSL providers use as part of the advertising
> pitch. Dynamic leasing via
> DHCP would provide the same (arguable) benefits and
> avoid some significant
> problems.
> 
> At 03:07 AM 8/11/00 -0700, William Black wrote:
> >PPPoE has the following advantages for ISPs:
> >
> >1.  IPs are dynamically allocated (no more having
> to
> >manage static IPs).
> >2.  IPs are allocated on demand.  More folks can
> thus
> >be squished into a single class C without having to
> >resort to NAT/IPMasq/whatever.
> >3.  Dynamic IPs and automatic disconnects mean
> fewer
> >folks running servers.
> >4.  If done correctly, you should be able to reduce
> >the number of things you need to configure.  PPP
> >should set IP, gateway, DNS, etc with a single
> >login/password.  The ISP can change those for these
> >people at will, without having to notify anyone.
> >
> >PPPoE has the following advantages for users:
> >
> >1.  Because your connection is on-demand and
> dynamic,
> >your system should be somewhat more secure (i.e.
> >you're a moving target).  If you have kids, this
> also
> >means that you can leave your system up without
> fear
> >of having them exposed to the untamed Internet
> (just
> >don't tell them the PPPoE password).
> >
> >In other words, there are some advantages for IP
> and
> >client setting management, but the downsides are
> >pretty extreme if you're anything but a casual
> user. 
> >This also means that those of us that give firewall
> >holes in corporate networks for users on static IPs
> >won't be able to do that anymore.  My company has
> had
> >to resort to VPN in these cases.  That means one
> login
> >for PacBell, one for the VPN, and another for the
> app
> >(Citrix ICA, e.g.).  With idle timeouts, that means
> >lots of logins/logouts over the course of a day
> (and
> >casual users don't like to do that--sysadmins do
> that
> >anyway, so who cares?).  That's why we're not
> setting
> >up our users with PacBell anymore.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> ------------------------------------"Never tell me
> the odds!"---
> Ray Olszewski                                       
> -- Han Solo
> Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray at comarre.com 
>       
>
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