help setting up Nextel BPL modem under Linux

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

I've got this working with the CD provided for windows and am now trying
to get it run under Linux. Nextel tech help is hopeless and it takes
30mins on the phone to even get anyone who is hopeless.

Nextel is deploying BPL (broadband over power line) in the RTP area as a
test for later deploying it elsewhere in the country. The modem looks like
a wifi WAP except with only one antenna. The link seems to be over the
power line to a repeater close to you, and it's 2.4GHz into the house from
there.

The CD for Windows just appears to contain a monitoring gui. The actual
connection to the modem and hence to a gateway and dns servers all seems
to be setup by dhcp as far as I can tell. It doesn't appear to be pppoe
or anything fancy (no username/passwd).

The problem I'm having is the the IP you get by dhcp is not on the same
network at the default gw and I don't know how to route to the default gw
under linux. Windows doesn't have a problem with this but I don't know
why.

Here's the IPs I get by dhcp (same under Linux/Windows)

my static IP=65.76.244.243/24
default gw  =172.29.251.133
DNS         =172.29.251.x and y (two entries)
dhcp server =172.30.30.128 (assume is an IP on the modem)

ipconfig under windows only shows the static IP on the NIC and the
127.0.0.1 on lo, so nothing fancy here.

Since routing isn't via an IP on the modem, I assume the modem is a
bridge.

When the windows machine is setup with the modem and I can make tcp
connections to the outside world (eg ftp, run nslookup)  I can't ping the
default gw, the DNS machines, or the dhcpserver. I can ping outside
machines (eg www.duke.edu). I don't know the equivalent of traceroute
under windows, so couldn't determine the routing to the outside world to
see if the packets were going by the default gw. I can imagine that they
might want to turn off pinging to the DNS machines, but it's not obvious
why they'd turn off pinging for the default gw.

Here's the output of `route print` on the windows box

dest           mask    gw            if

0.0.0.0        0.0.0.0 172.29.251    65.76.244.243
65.76.244.243  255^4   127.0.0.1     127.0.0.1
65.255.255.255 255^4   65.76.244.243 65.76.244.243
255^4          255^4   65.76.244.243 65.76.244.243
gw 172.29.251.133

does anyone understand how packets are being routed from 65.76.244.243/24
on the NIC to the default gw at 172.29.251.133?

Under linux I can't install the default gw - I get "no route to host"

Thanks Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!