[plug] Unattended reset of ADSL modem

[Daniel Pittman]

Steve Boak <sboak at westnet.com.au> writes:

> I have a problem down here in the sticks of Nannup that 'something'
> locks up my ADSL modem (iConnectAccess 624)
> occasionally. 'Occasionally' is around a couple of months, but the
> last two times have been when I was away from home and unable to reach
> the power switch to reset it, so losing access to all my server
> facilities for a few days.

A number of people have complained around me of the same sort of issue
in the past; I feel fro you.

> I suspect it's not my modem at fault, but something happening at the
> local exchange the drops the line, but what ever the cause it seems to
> require at least a soft reset of the modem to recover.

Personally, I would buy a better modem, but...

> My question is, how is this sort of problem handled in the commercial
> world where this type of downtime would be intolerable?

...oh, wait.  We do just buy a better modem. ;)

For personal use I simply purchased a modem and set it to do as little
as possible: it transports Ethernet frames to and from the DSLAM, but
nothing else, and I run PPPoE, firewalling and everything else on a
separate Linux server.

This has resolved *so* many problems for me over the years that I can't
think of doing it any other way by this stage: I don't have the
overheating issues, memory shortages, firewall blips or other problems
that seem endemic among my friends.

> I've thought of scripting an automatic reset through the modem control
> web page, or reinstating a dialup modem to get limited access, but
> what do other people do?

If I had nothing better than the modem you have, found that using it
only as a modem and not as a router / PPPoE service / etc ineffective:

Have a watchdog that would detect the line being down for 15 minutes and
reset the device through the web interface.  Rate limit it to only do
this once every 30 minutes or whatever, and life should be good.

Regards,
        Daniel

By "good" I mean "less awful, and just buy a better modem. ;)"