As part of the Excite/@Home to Cox conversion, I had to convert from a
static IP address to DHCP.  When I originally changed the configuration of
my external NIC from static to DHCP (without changing anything else), it
just would not get a DHCP address.  I'd had the same machine with the same
NIC hooked up to the cable modem the whole time I'd been connected to Cox.
Sniffing on the external interface, I could see my DHCP requests going out,
but nothing coming back.  Again, I didn't change NICs-- I just changed my
ne0 configuration from static to DHCP.  After I fought with getting that to
work for a while, I began to wonder if their DHCP server was somehow
configured to only give out IP addresses to Windows or Mac machines.  So I
tried connecting a Windows machine (which had never before been plugged into
the cable modem) directly to my cable modem.  The Windows machine
immediately got a DHCP address.  I plugged the OpenBSD box back in to the
cable modem, and again I got no DHCP address.  The only way I could get that
OpenBSD box to get a DHCP address was to power off the modem for a while.
Weird.  I still don't know why my Window machine was able to get a DHCP
address without having to recycle the cable modem, but not the OpenBSD
machine.   I haven't had any problems since I got it working.

~Jeff

On Monday, July 29, 2002 3:50 PM, tickticker wrote:

> In fact, it's a fact.  if you browse to 102.168.100.(11 or 
> 1?) you can see
> that the modem holds your mac addies in memory.  when you 
> power it down for
> so many minutes, your current mac addies are dropped and when 
> you reboot,
> the new ones are put in memory.  if this is a new nic, you 
> must do this.  I
> use a cisco 2611 to spoof an intel nic mac address, then 
> nat/dhcp behind
> that so i can add and remove pc's at will and not be a slave 
> to powering
> down my modem when i swap machines (i can also have 65000 
> addresses in my
> class b 10.1.x.x scheme).  The reprovisioning that was earlier in this
> thread is usually due to the exite-cox cutover and should 
> only need to be
> done once if at all.
> 
> my 2 sense
> 
> anthony