Under construction: Version: 2024-07-29(Mon)
More context: >Here< (and scroll up)
I take notes as I do things. Otherwise I forget what I did. This page is a summary. Maybe it will be useful to somebody.

How can a wired network move to the "cloud"?

I recently (2023-09-08) got a Spectrum (coax) "self install kit" and installed it myself. (I thought!) That involved a boring saga of tracing wires and making cables. It seems to be "Online", but not activated yet. Now comes the "fun" part.

There will be (I hope) a few precious weeks when both the DSL and the coax connections to the internet will be working. I never want to be totally disconnected. I need email and web to get answers and software.

1. Try to activate account via spectrum.net/selfinstall. Doesn't work. Call Spectrum. They say they see modem, but then not, they ask for MAC address which is written in tiny print on the bottom of the router, which is precariously balanced in a dark corner of the basement. While looking for that, they hang up. Try again. This time my name and MAC address are on the selfinstall web page. How did they get that? No joy. Technician visit to our house scheduled tomorrow 2023-09-17(Sun) 10:00am.
2. Sunday. I wake up wondering if it actually works. We never actually tried it. It doesn't work, but gives error "No Internet" when trying to connect. I have been told by many networking gurus that "crossover" cables have long been obsolete. Despite this, I get suspicious and put the router closer to the modem and use the cable that came with the self-install kit, rather than the longer one I made.
    It works better! Instead of "No Internet" it says "Secured and Connected" then "Can't Find DNS". I think of cancelling the technician visit, thinking it is connected, but spectrum as made an error in filling in one field of the form.

   I don't cancel. The technician comes, I explain the situation, he goes into the basement and discovers there is no signal on the coax cable. He goes outside to check the signal coming in to our house, he discovers that there is no cable at all coming into the house, and performs the part of "self-install" that I forgot to do:

   1. Prepare and cut about 50 yards of coax cable.
   2. Drill hole in house foundation.
   3. Climb ladder to connect to cable splitter near top of pole.
   4. String cable between pole and house through hole into basement.
   5. Secure it to basement ceiling all the way to a shelf in the office.
   6. Set up router where I wanted in the first place.
   Now it works! That was excellent service, but now that I am "on line", why do I feel like a fish? Did the numerous Spectrum representatives who said it was all ready for a self-install lie on purpose, or were they just clueless?

   Now D. has what is needed for work. The web browser provided through the coax cable and wireless router suffices. Now can I get the personal domain names working? The printer is connected through the wires, but it prints in shades of grey. It's only and barely fit to print invoices from GTT. I think GTT owes me money; so I won't be printing any of those.

   D. gives me the old laptop which is the only computer in the house that connects both with and without wires. I install Debian-12 on it. Work email can be done through the wireless web browser, but personal email will not work until plan B is completed.

3. (Tuesday Sep 26) Or should it be called plan C? Turn off autorenew on Godaddy. In case I can't get it working, I won't keep paying for registration. Pay for a month of cheapest VPS on Afterburst.
4. Send nerflings mailing list to nerflings.
5. Create VPS on Afterburst, get IP address (209.222.4.146).
6. I have been running a nameserver through the DSL. Fortunately, I do not really need that. I update Godaddy to use their name server and set address on nerflings.org.
7. (2023-09-27) Install Debian-11 on fcx1 (Afterburst VPS). That was harder than it needed to be. Late night hackathon. Reinstalled debian from scratch 4 or 5 times, but failed to upgrade. Finally got it right. Read details >Here<.
8. (2023-09-29) Disconnection eve. Change godaddy records for free-comp-shop.com and keithdiane.us, submit ticket to Afterburst asking for reverse records.
9. (2023-09-30) Disconnection day. Afterburst says I need an A record for fcx1, so I go goto Godaddy and do do that.
10. DSL disconnected? Actually, DSL seems to still work, but I am not using it. I am prevented from logging in to GTT's "portal". I guess "portal" means a web site with a password. I am forbidden from seeing how much money they think I still owe them.
11. I get my personal email sort of working. I need to log into fcx1, send and receive mail there, and then rsync to copy the mail file to the laptop.
    D. has installed Thunderbird (Mozilla Mail User Agent) on the purely wireless laptop, but is too busy to configure it. I need to know what it can do so that I can configure fcx1 to talk to it.
12. (2023-10-01) Get apache2 web server working on fcx1. This web page is served up by fcx1.
13. (2023-10-05,06) Install Thunderbird on Linux laptop fcs26. Make an extra account in the cloud on fcx1 and send mail to it. Read with Thunderbird on laptop. Now I know Thuderbird works! D. gets around to using it a few days later; that works too.
14. (2023-10-11) A Spectrum employee rings my doorbell, says "I am here to check equipment in your backyard". I point out the newly installed coax, and am told that it's of no interest, they will probably replace it with fiber!
15. (2023-10-13) DSL seems no longer connected.
16. (2023-11-21) Woke up to no internet connection. D. made telephone calls to Spectrum. After some confusion talking to chat-bots that wanted money (for what? They don't say.) she got through to a technical support person who did something to turn it back on. It's been working all afternoon and evening.

    … 10pm and it's still working. I have no clue what happened or why. How often will it just quit until we can get the right person on the telephone to fix it?

17. (2023-11-22) I discovered (when sending email did not work) that the routable IP address of the modem had changed. Does that have anything to do with yesterday's problem, and how how often will it happen? The address of the of Spectrum network in my house is now 47.14.87.66.
18. (2024-02-26) A reverse lookup on my 20 year old address still shows dig -x 66.92.74.188 ==> dsl.keithdiane.us, but a traceroute to that address goes to netops.charter.com bounces around in that domain a few times and then into a black hole. Needless to say, no packets come to my house at that address.
19. (2024-02-27) Now dig keithdiane.us ==> 209.222.4.146, which is the address of the cloud VPS, but dsl.keithdiane.us is an NX, no such domain.

To do list:

• Get email working better. How?
• Plug fcs19 into Spectrum router and install Debian-12 from scratch. — Tried that; didn't work.
• Tell Huricane Electric to discontinue secondary name service.
• Buy a new printer and hook it up.
• Connect the wired and wireless networks so that a purely wireless computer can use a wired computer for backups.

(checked 2025-05-02 )

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