Asklemmy

43891 readers

1358 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Interwebs ELI5 (aussie.zone)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Could someone explain why we can’t just plug the average PC etc into a ‘raw’ internet line (like just entering a house) and have a mini modem on the motherboard do the translation work?

I know there’s a limit to IP addresses, and that it’s maybe easier to have a little box do the work where it enters a building.

… but apart from that?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If your ISP uses an Ethernet cable into your premises, then you most likely can do exactly that. Either you’ll get an IP from the ISP’s DHCP server or you’ll have to configure a PPPoE client with some login details before the ISP issues you an IP and connectivity.

To do that to every device on the globe you’ll need a much larger address space to IPv6 is your only choice.

That said, be mindful of the security that a router provides. Connecting your PC this way means you desperately need to keep it up to date and running restricted firewall.

Some ISPs run a coaxial cable into your house, though. Most of these use (Euro)DOCSIS and finding an interface card for a regular PC seems impossible.

All in all, it’s possible but it depends on the cabling standards and the protocols spoken. Don’t forget, at the end of the day, your modem is just a computer running Linux, most likely.

Check out OPNsense or OpenWRT if you’re interested in using a regular computer for routing. Alternatively just use Linux but it’s a lot more work.