You just need to find a newsserver that doesn't attach the NTTP-posting-host header. I don't know if there are any open/free newsservers that do that or that you will need to get an account at some pay server. You can't make that header dissapear on your side with any software solution. Posting through some anonymising proxy to an open newsserver would be another option. The disconnecting/reconnecting in the hope of getting a new IP# is rather unelegant and will still give you an IP# out of a limited IP-block.
Hi Duane, I never said I did. That's why I ask you experts for help so that once the ISP gives up on an IP address, that the router would then dial in asking for a new one (without resorting to rebooting the router).
Hi Duane, I'm wondering if you understand what I said? I get a new IP address any time I want. All I have to do is wait about 4 hours with the modem turned off and reboot the router after I turn on the modem. So, why do you say I can't CHANGE the IP address? Am I misunderstanding you or are you misundertanding me? Please clarify.
Hi Duane, Again, I fail to understand you or you fail to understand me. With DHCP you get a different IP address every time I leave the modem off overnight and reboot both the modem and router in the morning. So, why do you insist on saying I have to not pay my bill in order to get a new IP address. Again, am I misunderstanding you or are you misunderstanding me. Please clarify.
Hi Duane, If I understand you correctly (and you'll need to clarify if I don't), you say I can't change my IP address (assuming I pay my bill). But, I can easily change my IP address. I do it almost every day (see explanations in this thread ... there are probably fifty of them saying so). Everyone else understood me ... but you ... or ... am I misunderstanding you? Please clarify.
Hi Rasta Robert, Thank you for your kind advice. Until midway through this thread, I was unaware that I was basically in a small subset of nntp posters whose assigned IP address is what is shown in usenet news headers (as opposed to a tremendously more obscure nntp news server).
Therefore, it became even more imperative for me to change my IP address daily (notwithstanding the argument that there is only a limited set of IP addresses which the ISP randomly assigns to me).
The options you suggest are viable ... but alas ... all cost more or are more work than just powering down the modem at night and then powering up the modem in the morning and then cycling the router a few seconds later.
If I could only figure out how to get the router to connect back to the ISP in the morning (which is always after the original IP address has already been given away) - that would be cost effective and simple.
I think (but I do not know for sure) that this inability for the router to realize that there is no IP address coming out of the modem, is a bug in the router. What would we do to prove that is a bug and not just a design feature? Certainly it's not documented to act that way in the user manual which implies the router knows when there is no connection to the ISP and the router will connect upon the next demand to do so.
Seems to me this is a bug in the router. Can anyone reliably confirm or deny?
I am not reading this whole thread - every posts, and I am not reading every post you have made in all of this. Like I said, IF the IP is provisioned to your modem's MAC and to the MAC of the first device behind the modem such as a router with both linked to an ISP account like my ISP did, then that IP is not changing. If that's not the case, then that is not the case.
T54G router. It would be interesting to see if other routers have the
And I'll bet money that the 54G doesn't have a bug.
Some IP's don't allow this, and maybe, it's that you don't have a broadband connection. Like I said, I am not reading this entire thread with everything being posted. A person would have to be insane to do it, but there are those that will do just that.
You should have bitch-slapped your crazy ass mama from one end of the that nasty alley to the other end of it, where your crazy ass was born, for having you, that's where some bitch-slapping belongs.
Yo-howl, your crazy ass back to the alley and find her, don't blame me.
So even after your max idle timeout time has been exceeded if you connect to the router it still shows as connected to your ISP?
Are you 100% sure your computer(s) aren't generating any traffic?
This seems like an issue with the router, it should be disconnecting you after 5 mins (not multiple hours), a call to Linksys' 800 number might be a good move.
She's connecting to her IPS via PPPoE, which is kind of broadband dialup, like PPP (in fact, if you connect from Linux, you can use the same scripts). The ISP hands out IP addresses dynamically. Mostly, if the ISP is big enough, you can get a different address just by disconnecting and reconnecting (just keep doing it 'til you're happy with the address you get). A smaller ISP will have a more limited range of addresses to hand out. Aluxe is with Pacific Bell, it looks like, and I would think that they're a pretty big company.
Her router hands out IP addresses (in the "private" range) to her LAN computer(s) via DHCP. That's the only place that DHCP comes into this picture.
It's not that she doesn't know what she's talking about, it's that she's a trifle confused and very obsessed with a non-issue. There's no way you can be anonymous without using the anonymous tools out there. Also, her writing style is so distinct, it wouldn't matter if she posted as Fred Bezak from Cotse or Altopia: eventually, someone would recognize her.
Hi kingthorin, I love when I see your responses because they are all germane to the question at hand! Thank you for keeping on topic.
I have no idea whether my WinXP SP2 OS or its applications are generating any traffic during the day when I am not using it. I turned off all the things I "think" are generating traffic and I have a software firewall which was long ago set up to prevent outside access from programs such as real player, adobe acrobat, etc. which constantly "phone home".
But, is there an easy test to PROVE that no traffic has been generated for the past, say, fifteen minutes?
Again, thank you for your kind response. The question is posed to a group of experts on routers and firewalls how to get a firewalled router to connect to a PPPoE ISP after a well defined circumstance occurs - namely, the modem is turned on after a 4-hour period where it was off.
If that question sounds "confused" to you, then it must be confusing to others (perhaps that's why there is so much traffic on this one thread) so I will restate the question specifically below.
QUESTION TO FIREWALL ROUTER NETWORK EXPERTS ONLY:
- Given PPPoE and WinXP and the Linksys WRT54G router ...
- If you turn off the modem to Pacific Bell for four hours ...
- Which always results in the ISP dropping the assigned IP address ...
- Wouldn't you expect the Linksys router to reconnect to the ISP on demand?
I'm confused by your assumption that a router should not reconnect to the PPPoE ISP after a modem has been inoperative for such as time as the ISP has reassigned the previous IP address to another.
Why isn't the resolution of that clear and existant situation "nonsense"?
The issue exists. It is real. It is reproduceable. Anyone else can reproduce it given a similar setup (which is common).
So why is asking why a router doesn't reconnect when the previous lease has expired not a germane question to this newsgroup? (Is it because you don't like the question or is it because you feel the router is doing what it should be ding - which is not connecting to the ISP)?
First, let me prefix this response with the fact that I don't currently use PPPoE (although I did over 5 years ago and even then I used it from Linux not XP), so I can't talk specifically about that. My current set up is a cable modem and not DSL, another difference. Moreover, every ISP does things just a bit differently than others, even within an ISP you can get local variations, my Comcast service in Hopkintom MA worked differently than my Comcast service in Marlboro, and differently again than Charter in Berlin, so even if I were using DSL (and it wold be Verizon DSL), my answers might not help you.
The WRT54G is a "venerable" router. It is unlikely that it has a bug that is causing the problem. I think it is reasonable to expect that there is a configuration setting on the WRT54G that tell it to hang-up/re-connect after inactivity and that using that should get your router to disconnect.
Now, as I recall, you said if you power off the router (and not the modem) you can get a new IP address. That suggests that it is the router and not the modem, which is key in getting a new IP. Thus, if you are not getting a new IP, your router is probably not disconnecting.
Next, a software firewall does not prevent traffic from going out. If it did, you couldn't surf the web at all. A software (or hardware) firewall only prevents traffic from coming into your computer from "sessions/flows" you didn't initiate. Those are networking specific terms (and I am not a networking expert, although I do work vaguely in that area at the moment). Essentially, when you make a web request, you start a session with the remote host, and that host can send you back information as part of the same session and those responses will get through your firewall. However, if your local computer doesn't start a session (or if the remote computer sends you information that it doesn't mark as part of the session your computer initiated), the firewall will not pass the information (packet) on to your computer. some firewalls, [also] do other things, but for your question, the firewall probably is performing that function.
Thus, if you have software on your machine the desires to "phone home". Your firewall won't block that traffic. The firewall can't distinguish between traffic that your computer generates because you want it to, and traffic your computer generates because some program wants to "phone home" even though you don't want it to--there is no "intent" field in the traffic, where the request says do this because the user typed on the keyboard, v. do this because Adobe reader wants me to. Now, sometimes, you can prevent such traffic by "blocking specific ports". However, it is also possible that the "phone home" traffic can be indistinguishable from your normal/useful web traffic (e.g. using port 80 where your web traffic normally flows and which you don't want to block).
There are simple devices (programs) called "packet sniffers" that can tell you what traffic is being generated by your computer. I don't know if there are any packet sniffers that run on XP and will tell you if the XP machine itself is generating traffic. Generally, the packet sniffers I know about are a separate computer you add to the mix that watch for traffic. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution that does exactly what you want (in terms of proving there is no traffic).
Now, if you were "REALLY" motivated to find a solution to this problem (I'm not impugning your motivation, you are most tenacious, but you aren't (and shouldn't be) willing to spend say $300 to buy a solution that also might require you to learn Linux and networking and ..., which would be the mark of "REALLY" motivated--e.g. because it was your job to fix this problem for a company that was losing money because of this hole. Spending $300 to fix this problem in your shoes would not be the mark of the motivated, but of the paranoid)....
Again, if you had that level of motivation, you could buy a cheap Linux computer with two network cards in it, and use the ipfilter software to build a sniffer and more importantly to drop the packets which was keeping the port active.
Now, there may be cheaper solutions. They may run on XP. I just don't happen to know what they are. You might try googling for "packet sniffer" and see what you come up with. It's a lead and you can follow it to see if it gets you closer to the solution you want.
Note some routers will provide "traffic reports". However, I don't know if the WRT54G, begin marketed for "home use" provides such level of sophistication. However, if I understand right, the WRT54G is actually a popular router that many people have "hacked" and thus, for which, these is downloadable software that changes how it works. You could try googling for that too.
I myself would be looking for "mail to news gateways". With those you can probably camoflague your posting address without hiding your local computer's IP at all.
BTW, one simple (and cheap) way to test if it is your computer generating the traffic, is to leave the modem (and router) on and turn the computer off. If the router doesn't disconnect after your doing that for an appropriately long period (your 15 mins), then you probably don't have the router's settings right yet. If turning your computer off makes the router disconnect, then it is probably computer generated traffic (or the router sensing the ethernet card in your computer). If turning the computer off makes the modem disconnect, you can see if it is the ethernet card by putting a password on your computer so that you have to login, and restarting your computer, but not logging in. That will leave your ethernet card on, but because you haven't logged in, no programs should be running on your machine generating traffic.
Hope this helps,
-Chris
***************************************************************************** Chris Clark Internet : snipped-for-privacy@world.std.com Compiler Resources, Inc. Web Site :
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If you goto a command prompt and do a: netstat -ao
-a for all and o for process IDs, you can see if there are any active connections, unfortunately this is only a point in time test....if something is doing small bursts of traffic you may miss it, however it's a good place to start. Once you have the list you can open task manager and match the process IDs from netstat to any applications/services that are running.
It'll look something like this: C:\\>netstat -ao
Active Connections
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID TCP WL-5200:135 WL-5200.domain.com:0 LISTENING
2996 TCP WL-5200:4257 localhost:4258 ESTABLISHED
2364 TCP WL-5200:4258 localhost:4257 ESTABLISHED
2364
WL-5200 is my laptop name so there's some MS service connections from my machine to my machine (no surprise....remember localhost is also your machine). We also see that process ID 4080 has a connection to base01.secway.fr on port 80 (when I check task manager 4080 is my SimpLite application). Anyway basically you want to be sure that there are no external domain names or IP addresses in the list. (Connections from your machine to your machine are fine).
There is another possibility here. Some years ago I had a significant problem with the modem/router pair being quite active when the computer was not in use. This was in win98 days, before all the 'phone home' concerns. It ended up that a few of the web sites I had visited kept sending whatever they needed to, to keep the connection open. Apparently this was done to enable faster access to their content (ads?) if I re-opened IE or Netscape You may wish to examine your incoming/outgoing traffic from the router and compare that to what is reported by the computer. If you modem or router is receiving packets, you will not get a period of inactivity when your computer is shut down.
And, because this is traffic from the outside in, your software firewall (on the computer) will drop it, but it will get through to your router, which is before the software firewall. If you are using a firewall in the router itself, then the router will still get the traffic but drop it. Thus, it will still be flowing through the modem, keeping it active.
So, if you have outside traffic coming in, your link may still be active, and thus your router not disconnecting, even if you have it configured "right" (i.e. to disconnect on inactivity).
You should post to a NG that deals with routers. I am sure there is a Linksys forum, NG or better yet, call Linksys tech support. There is also the Linksys Knowledge Base at
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Basically, you have beaten this horse to death and have ridden it hard into the ground.
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