prevent excessive dialups with ISDN router?

SouperComputer

A while back, I setup a winXP home network a while back with ICS and more or less came to the conclusion that it will dial up every minute, regardless of what updates your perform.

im setting up a wirless AP with ISDN, however im worried that the router is going to be dialing like crazy and costing a fortune. All the clients are using XP Home.

any reccomendations or caveats for this setup? I was thinking of using the following:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5753732787&fromMakeTrack=true
(ISDN is a temporary measure so I want to spend as little as possible on the router.)

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=123444&s=sc

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=300373&s=sc

the setup in question is in a farmhouse with 2ft thick walls, hence the extra antenna to help things along.

Gone West

hey its just simple winxp settings. Just set it to "never dial" or anything but "always dial". And if you want disable the option to let every computer dial up.

SouperComputer

its an ethernet based setup, hence ICS in the first case and an ISDN router in the current one.

as a result, all the machines will be set to never dial a connection, hence it looks for it through the network and the router (or ics server) starts the connection.

this is fine, and, normal. The problem is that XP espcially seems to access the internet a lot in the background, initiating the connection too often, without user intervention and costing a shed load of money.

With ICS you can allow the users to initiate or terminate the connection, but this means a PC has to be left on. AKAIR, a PC costs about 300euro per year to run on electricity! In any event, ICS is not an option for this application.

Im guessing I have two options:

1. An ISDN router with a connect threshold in addition to the traditional disconnect on

or

2. An ISDN router that confronts the client with a dialup page when you first acess the internet through a browser and requires a login or simply a click on a dialog box to confirm the connection. This would be a pain in the ass as you would need to open a browser window to start the connection if you wanted to use an email client prog or IM application.

azezil

SouperComputer wrote:

The problem is that XP espcially seems to access the internet a lot in the background, initiating the connection too often.

Network connections - Advanced - Dialup Preferences, tick the boxes "Always ask me before auto dialling" and "disable auto dialling when i am logged on"

as for the rest... *wooosh*

SouperComputer

azezil wrote:

Network connections - Advanced - Dialup Preferences, tick the boxes "Always ask me before auto dialling" and "disable auto dialling when i am logged on"

as for the rest... *wooosh*

im not sure how this solves the problem? It has no effect on the client machines, and requires user intervention on the ICS "server".

tomk

I had this problem back in my ISDN days, using a Cisco 1603. I was a Cisco newbie at the time, but eventually I figured out that the dial-up was being constantly triggered by my network's netbios traffic. So I got down and dirty with the IOS, and put some ACLs on to block it. Worked like a charm after that.

I might still have a copy of the config around somewhere, if you're interested.

SouperComputer

hi tomk, if you have the config handy, that would be great.

dont go to too much trouble, the comment on netbios is an interesting one. What if i blocked all netbios actvity with SP2's (admitedly crap) firewall?

SMB should still work without netbios right? as long as I assign a master browser to help things along?

tomk

Shortly after I stopped using ISDN, I stopped using Windoze too, so I'm afraid I'm no longer qualified to answer those questions!

I'll see if I can dig out the config for you tonight - it was for IOS 12.2, AFAIR.

tuxy

why not get a flat rate package so it does not matter how many times it dials up the net?
i dont see why anyone would go to the expense(rip off) of isdn and not get a flat rate package to go with it

SouperComputer

tuxy wrote:

why not get a flat rate package so it does not matter how many times it dials up the net?
i dont see why anyone would go to the expense(rip off) of isdn and not get a flat rate package to go with it

hmm thats an interesting point. Still means you are one line down when you may need two, but at least its not costing a fortune.

always the simplest solution innit?

Stephen

Make sure you've got RIP broadcasts and the like turned off on the router. That would cause a dialup about once a minute if enabled.
Your router might not even support RIP, I'm only going on what I know of Cisco isdn routers.

fatherdougalmag

Would it be just too inconvenient to unplug the ISDN line or power off the router when not in use?