[lug] Linux with Starband, Fast at XS and Nebulink

[Bonnell, Doug]

There is a hack for the "180" satellite modem provided from Starband. The
box has a USB
card and an ethernet prot. The hack removes the USB and forces use of the
ethernet port.
I believe this was mentioned on slashdot, so starting there with a search on
starband should
help folks find info on the hack.

As for the asymetrical satellite service, there is support of sorts under
Linux for the Telemann
SM200DTP PCI card. I've compiled the driver on a RedHat 7.0 system. There is
a lesstif based
GUI application that allows setup of the satellite transponder, MAC address,
etc. This application
is exactly like the Windows version.

The problem for Linux with these asymetrical services lies with the "login
client". A small program
is used to authorize the user's satellite MAC address. The ones currently
available only support
Windows, even though a client for Linux should be trivial.

The login clients pass the user ID, password and the card's MAC address to
the login server. This is
usually done on port 6000. The server then responds with authorization on
port 8000. The client will
then issue a "keep alive" handshake every few seconds while the user is
logged onto the service.

Notice the use of the different ports. This has the (perhaps planned?)
feature of doing a number on
NAT, since NAT usually likes to keep its address translation going thru the
same port. There is a
hack for the Linux kernel to allow it to NAT using different ports. I'm
still reading up on all of this, so
sorry if my explaination is a bit vague.

Anyway, I'm still working on a login client for Linux. It might be possible
to run the client under an
emulator, like Wine. That or just have a junky old Windows machine around on
the LAN for the client
to run on.

Regards,
Doug Bonnell