New 1.3.14 modules with support for multiple DHCP and PPPoE WAN connections

[J. A. Calvo]

We are glad to announce that a feature that some of us have been waiting for a long time is ready to be tested now.

The new ebox-network and ebox-firewall 1.3.14 modules add the ability of combine multiple DHCP or PPPoE connections allowing to enjoy the multigateway features in eBox like traffic balance. The WAN failover support is still under development but we hope to release a new version soon before 1.4 is out.

As usual, your help testing it is really useful to help us squash any bug. And remember that this is still beta software and should not be used in production yet.

To get the new packages if you already have an eBox >=1.3.12 installed, just execute:

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apt-get update
apt-get install ebox-network ebox-firewall
Hope you enjoy testing it!

[Ariel Antigua]

 Great.. downloading 1.2-16 right now....

[J. A. Calvo]

Great.. downloading 1.2-16 right now....

You have to download 1.3.15 if you are interested in this feature...

[tekoholic]

Although I am glad to see that PPPoE and Multi-WAN via DHCP are now supported, there appears to still be some issue:

If I enable my Cable Modem and my PPPoE DSL (both via USB, in bridged mode), both gateways show up in the Gateway list, and Traffic Balancing CAN be enabled.  The ppp-gw-dsl does not get an IP address, both weights are 1, no default is set, and NOTHING can be edited on either GW.  Any attempt to do so ends in error:  "You can not manually add a gateway for DHCP or PPPoE interfaces."

If, as well, I attempt to also enable a WAN Failover rule, to ping either Gateway, I receive an error:

"A really nasty bug...

Exception

Not valid autoload method any since ppp is not a EBox::Model::DataTable

Trace

Not valid autoload method any since ppp is not a EBox::Model::DataTable at /usr/share/perl5/EBox/Model/DataTable.pm line 2772
EBox::Model::DataTable::AUTOLOAD('ppp','dhcp') called at /usr/share/perl5/EBox/Network/Model/WANFailoverRules.pm line 190"

There is MUCH more to this error, but I'm guessing that's enough to show the issue?

[J. A. Calvo]

Hi tekoholic, thanks for your feedback.

First of all, regarding the failover issue, allow me to quote myself:

The WAN failover support is still under development but we hope to release a new version soon before 1.4 is out.

So you can't expect it to work, anyway I know that the nasty bug is not very nice. It won't happen in the next version, a warning is shown instead.

Regarding the issue with your USB modems: maybe you need to do anything special to make them work? The truth is we only have tested it with DSL modems connected to the ethernet card, without USB.

If you have any additional info to make work the USB modems will be really welcome. You can also show us the output of the "plog" command just after saving changes in eBox or executing "/etc/init.d/ebox network restart" to see if there is any useful info.

[tekoholic]

Hi tekoholic, thanks for your feedback.

Of course!

First of all, regarding the failover issue, allow me to quote myself:

The WAN failover support is still under development but we hope to release a new version soon before 1.4 is out.

So you can't expect it to work, anyway I know that the nasty bug is not very nice. It won't happen in the next version, a warning is shown instead.

I understood this.  Just thought I'd add my info, to assist with troubleshooting / error-chasing...

Regarding the issue with your USB modems: maybe you need to do anything special to make them work?

Yes, I did.  I had, unfortunately, to upgrade to the -server or -generic (either worx fine) kernels, from the eBox 1.3 repo, so as to permit the installation of linux-restricted-modules, linux-ubuntu-modules-server / -generic, linux-backports-modules, etc.  None of these are compiled for the -ebox kernel, and they're necessary for much of what I'm trying to do.  Before these (I'm not sure which one specifically), either of my modems returned an error "cannot accept address..." in dmesg, when plugged.

You can also show us the output of the "plog" command just after saving changes in eBox or executing "/etc/init.d/ebox network restart" to see if there is any useful info.

plog returns nothing, run as user or root.  However:

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tekoholic@ebox:~$ lsmod | grep usb
usbnet                 20232  3 rndis_wlan,rndis_host,cdc_ether
mii                     6400  2 3c59x,usbnet
usbcore               146412  7 rndis_wlan,rndis_host,cdc_ether,usbnet,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
tekoholic@ebox:~$ uname -a
Linux ebox 2.6.24-26-server #1 SMP Tue Jan 5 01:33:07 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
Hopefully, this info might prove useful?

I do understand the concept of only supporting LTS Releases.  I do, tho, also see the need to keep up with HW support, that is often provided with the backports.  I'm still stuck with an unuseable Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg and a coupla' tetherable cell-phones that show up as generic RNDIS devices in Intrepid and everything newer (planned to be additional WANs, when supported), but those are completely unsupported by the underlying OS, not the fault of eBox...

[J. A. Calvo]

So, if we support the linux-restricted-modules for the -ebox kernel you think it will work?

Regarding the LTS releases, don't worry because hopefully lucid is the next one and it's coming very soon, we hope to have (beta - 1.5) packages for it during February. Maybe it will be easier to have LinuxMCE on lucid than eBox on intrepid

[tekoholic]

So, if we support the linux-restricted-modules for the -ebox kernel you think it will work?

I do, yes.  I'm not sure, but pretty close...

Regarding the LTS releases, don't worry because hopefully lucid is the next one and it's coming very soon, we hope to have (beta - 1.5) packages for it during February. Maybe it will be easier to have LinuxMCE on lucid than eBox on intrepid

I know.  I'm already getting ready to compile the 1.3.xx basics on Lucid, on a dedicated dev-box I've reserved for this project, and it's integration with LinuxMCE.  So, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know.  Just understand that I'm already in over my head here, and probably going to break it a million times, before I get anything done...