ADSL Diagnostics in Linux

[Enverex]

Does anyone know any way of getting line diagnostics in Linux on an ADSL line? Previously I used a D-Link DSL 504 router but it was, to be honest, an utter POS, but what it did to that was useful was well me the line length, attenuation, SNR, etc etc. Now I have decided to let my server deal with the internet connection and it now serves the house via a Speedtouch 330 USB ADSL modem.

Now, in Windows you can run a program called Dr Speedtouch that will give you a readout of all the figures that I need, but does anyone know if there is any way to do the same in Linux generically or for this particular modem? I've been searching Google and such but I'm getting too many unrelated results to be useful.

[directhex]

according to their mailing list, can't be done.

[herulach]

I'd be very surprised if you could even get a connection runnin in linux, never mind any diagnostics. DO yourself a favour and get a ethernet modem/router.

[Enverex]

I'd be very surprised if you could even get a connection runnin in linux, never mind any diagnostics. DO yourself a favour and get a ethernet modem/router.

I had no problem getting a connection up and it's been running perfectly for a week or so now and due to it being my server, I also have considerably more control over the connection itself now, so I'd rather not use an ethernet modem/router as I just changed from one and prefer using Linux.

[peterb]

How do you interface the linux box (which I presume is doing your routing and firewall function) to the telephone line? You must have some sort of modem there...

[directhex]

How do you interface the linux box (which I presume is doing your routing and firewall function) to the telephone line? You must have some sort of modem there...

erm, yes, an alcatel speedtouch330 usb adsl modem, as he said to start with.

[TheAnimus]

Two of my most hated things, network devices that use USB, and linux's USB handling. The tool probably hasn't been written, you could use USB snooping devices on windows and make it. Its not hard, its just long boring labourios monkey work. Would a PCI varient be an option? You might well find information like that is provided by the manifacture endorsed driver for one of them.

I've searched the mailing lists i often use when needing linux device driver aid to no avail.

edit and directhex, you so know i want to rub the anti-linux nature of this in your face. But this sort of thing is very well suited to linux, i just prefer BSD for this type of thing (note sorry this wouldn't help with this problem, its just much better OS at networking!)

Some devices put SNR out on SNMP, its well worth checking that, but in my experiance its only wireless devices doing that! (but thats all i've ever looked for on it!).

[peterb]

erm, yes, an alcatel speedtouch330 usb adsl modem, as he said to start with.

(*blushes furiously*)

I guess there are statistics/diagnostics available from the device, which are accessed or measured by the (Windows) drivers. I'm not sure the USB drivers for Linux interface with the device - perhaps ethereal could be used to measure the packets out. Using a dedicated router (many of which use an embedded linux as the OS anyway) provide (as was said in a previous post) this detail which is available via the snmp protocols. If you are an adept C programmer, I'm sure it would be possible to write some code to do that - as I'm not, I'd use a dedicated router in brdging mode and use the built in functions to give me the statistics.

[TheAnimus]

ethereal measures packets. Enless the router is providing the diagnostic information via IP this wouldn't help.

USB has a concept called an endpoint. devices can have more than one endpoint, there will be an endpoint for the TCP/IP data, and an endpoint for control (i'd hope they would be rather, as this would help if glitches happen in the main data stream).

[Enverex]

Ok, well I'm not an adept C coder so I can't write something myself and buying a new device is a little extreme considering this one is fine. If I can't get anything to measure it, I'll just have to go to the server with my laptop, plug the modem into that and check it via Windows. Odd that there isn't a low level way of checking this as Linux is normally known for it's ability to probe devices for anything and everything.

[TheAnimus]

Ok, well I'm not an adept C coder so I can't write something myself and buying a new device is a little extreme considering this one is fine. If I can't get anything to measure it, I'll just have to go to the server with my laptop, plug the modem into that and check it via Windows. Odd that there isn't a low level way of checking this as Linux is normally known for it's ability to probe devices for anything and everything.

not with things like this its not.

you might be able to pick it up via SNMP if the device presents it like this, but as i said i've only had experance of wireless devices providing this.

[directhex]

according to the mailing list, the info is presented via a proprietary method which alcatel haven't felt generous enough to share

[Enverex]

Figures. Ok then, thanks everyone.