Hacking the Actiontec 56k Modem/Gateway

william_lorenz writes "The Actiontec Dual 56k External Modem is an inexpensive device with a built-in 56k modem and two Ethernet ports that can be used as an Internet gateway of sorts. What's great about it is that it runs some form of uClinux, it's easily hackable, and Greg Boehnlein of the Linux Users Group of Cleveland and NOOSS fame recently contributed a detailed report on his findings! Pictures of the board are also available here, here, and here. Lots of specific details are included in Greg's article, and there's been some further discussions about this on the LUGC mailing lists."

Re:56k gateways

[mackstann]

Two ethernet ports + linux + easily hackable = who cares about the modem jack?

"A bit lame" cry they...

[Lacertus]

Though it may be a common mentality to proclaim something such as this a 'technological innovation' well past it's prime, I urge you to remeber that that 50% of our (well, my) U.S. population happily exists on a 56K home *dialup* connection.

Yes, the net is revolutionary in its selfless intent for make information avialable. Let us please rejoice in these simple, evolutionary advances that bring the world that much closer to what _we_ have known for years :-)

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

A NATted LAN is certainly better than nothing when you're sharing a house with multiple machines. Yes, it's slow if two people are using it at once, but it also means you don't need a modem in each box, don't need to risk someone else trying to dial out with another machine while you're already connected, someone can sneak in a quick Google or mail-read around your activity (or, in my case, I could stay on IRC while others browsed to their hearts' content)... ...But most importantly, it's a dramatic convenience when working with *NIX machines, and other software/projects that assume use in a LAN environment. Yes, you *can* net-install OpenBSD overnight on a 56k link - but you'll need to be ethernetted to do it, since they didn't fit ppp on the install floppy.

Now, I can see some vague utility for this hardware in the SOHO market, though I can't tell if it's configured for same by default (the marketing and 'modem' branding suggests not):

A lot of small businesses rely on DSL or Cable shared through a simple Linksys, but should there be an outage, their LANs are dead in the water. With a modem *in* the dinky embedded router, they'd have the option of falling back to dialup rather than closing up shop or waiting for their MCSE to get to dealing with it. With the appropriate firmware load, one of these things could provide fully automatic failover - and "failback" when it detects the DSL or cable has returned.

Many businesses I've met have been confused into paying for a full unused phone line/number 'beneath' their DSL anyway, so this would improve their uptime without adding to their costs. True, the same could be done with a dedicated *NIX machine, or even Windows ICS, but not everyone has technical staff on hand, and it'd be cheaper to have a contractor drop in $100 of 'foolproof' hardware once than stay on-call for care-and-feeding of a less "embedded" solution.

Re:Inexpensive?

[EnglishTim]

I think the point is that it is easy to connect two computers to the modem via the ethernet ports if you don't want to have to set up internet connection sharing on one of your computers.

Re:56k gateways

[screenrc]

I have worked on such uClinux gadgets (for pay); although I have not bothered to read about this product, it should be safe to make these observations:

1. Two posts only? That is not very useful at all. You probably need a hub as well.

2. uClinux is not readily hackable, at least until you drift of it, and also know how to recover when this thing freezes. You can not just dive into it as if it was a linux PC.

3. The modem is probably the *best* part, but that has been done for many, many years. Nothing special.

If this thing had more than 2 eth ports, it could be useful; but, I would rather have it wirelss.

Re:56k gateways

[Jason1729]

If you're doing big downloads, 56k is already painfully slow, so this will only make it worse.

For typical websurfing you spend most of the time reading a page and a small portion loading new pages. It seems like both users downloading a new page at the same time will only happen occasionally, so most of the time, they can share the 56k connection without even noticing.

On the rare occasion where both users do load a page at the same time, it's still working at half speed, so it's not a major problem for how uncommon it is.

Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

Who says modem must be used outgoing ?

[gibodean]

Yeah, 56k is pretty slow for lots of us these days.

But, the device is hackable, and so you can turn that modem into an incoming port, instead of connecting to the internet outgoing.

It would be great for me. I've got ADSL, and a non-router modem. I want to share the ADSL between the PCs in my house, and also allow my girlfriend to dial in to use it too (instead of paying an ISP). And, I don't want to have a noisy, power chugging PC running 24/7 just to do that.

This device would be great. One ethernet port to connect to the ADSL modem, one to connect to my internal network, and the landline modem to allow my girlfriend to dial in.

Re:56k gateways

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not a modem sharing thingy! this is a cheap single board computer that runs linux, has two ethernet ports and a modem, probably some other digital/serial io. (boxed, with psu, etc) that runs linux!!! perfect candidate for a web thermometer, ethernet garage door opener, robot brain, home weather station controller, etc.

Re:56k gateways

[dreamchaser]

I know that others have disagreed, but I had to add my ten cents. It is not worthless. A lot of people seem to forget that the vast majority of people do not have broadband yet. Until we were able to get it I used a single 56k line to share with my family. For web browsing and email it worked, though I'd usually disconnect everyone else when I wanted to play Quake.

No, it isn't very fast and the latency is rather high, but it isn't at all pointless. It works quite well actually.

Re:56k gateways

[lucifuge31337]

Incidentally, this isn't even a thing of the past. It turns out 56K Frame Relay links live on. I know of a _massive_ corporation that links most of its stores to the central mainframe via 56K FR links. Why? Because It Works.

While I'm sure you are aware of it, I doubt many others are: 56k frame and 56k analog dialup are fantastically different in actual performance. A 56k FR has very low latency, which makes interactive apps (like telnet and SNA crap, the bulk of the traffic I see still going over these links) very much usable. Try that with a modem and the latency makes it very difficult to tolerate with multiple users.

great hack value

[kguilber]

This is a perfect example of how useful playful hacking can be to the industry. This guy found a gaping wide security hole in the router, and Actiontek actually listened, and fixed it the same day. If only more companies listened more closely to the hacker community....

you forgot something

[Anonymous Coward]

With 2 ethernet ports it could make a good firewall with dial up for remote administration. This might be a good at a site location that you do not always have physical access like a exec/ceo's house...

Re:Inexpensive?

[Damin]

The purpose of the article was to demonstrate how the box can be modified to fit your own needs with the hopes that others will take the initiative and explore. This box is an awesome introduction to embedded computing platforms at nearly 1/4 the price of DIY boards. The fact that it actually is usable as a gateway is not really relevant, nor is the comparison of adding a modem to a Linux box. You won't learn a thing about embedded Linux by adding a modem to your box.