Cable Modems and OS/2: Checklist

f you're one of the lucky residents of an area where cable Internet access is currently available, the following instructions will help you prepare and install the service with OS/2.

Keep in mind that these instructions will only be 100% relevant if your cable provider uses identical hardware and software to my local provider, Access Cable. If your cable company does differ somewhat though, the following information should still give you an idea of what you need to get your service up and running.

What You Will Need

The basic goal of setting up a cable modem with OS/2 will generally be to surf the 'net. In order to use all the standard Internet services, you will need the following:

For Basic Internet Connections

Required Item	Where To Get It
Cable Modem	Provided by cable company
Network Interface Card (Probably a 10BaseT Ethernet card)	Provided by cable company
Driver for NIC	OS/2 Warp 4 Installation CD, OS/2 Device Driver Pak On-Line or NIC manufacturer
IBM TCP/IP	OS/2 Warp 4 Installation CD
Required Info	Where To Get It
Domain Name	Provided by cable company
Nameserver IP address	Provided by cable company
Router IP address	Provided by cable company
Subnet Mask	Provided by cable company
Mail and News server addresses	Provided by cable company
Whether DHCP is used or not	Provided by cable company
IP address (needed if DHCP is not used)	Provided by cable company

Since cable modem service basically attaches your computer to a large network spanning entire neighbourhoods, you may also want to take advantage of other network abilities than just Internet services. If you want to be able to share files and other resources over your cable company's network, in addition to the above, you will need to the following:

For File and Print Sharing

Required Item	Where To Get It
File and Print Client (also known as NetBEUI on Microsoft networks)	OS/2 Warp 4 Installation CD
Required Info	Where To Get It
Username for network	Provided by cable company
Password for network	Provided by cable company

Installation Instructions for TCP/IP

Again, remember that these instructions apply to setting up "The Wave" cable modem service provided by Access Cable, with OS/2 Warp 4 (no FixPaks). Your setup may differ slightly -- check with your cable company's technicians.

1. Allow the cable technicians to physically install the cable modem and Ethernet card and connect all cables. If at all possible, have the cable technician install the service using a supported operating system and verify that everything works properly with that operating system. Take note of any settings such as name server and router IP addresses, usernames and passwords, news and e-mail servers, etc.

2. Insert the Warp 4 Installation CD in your CD-ROM drive.

3.Open the "Install/Remove" folder (in the "OS/2 System" -> "System Setup" folder) and double-click on the "Selective Install for Networking" object.

4. From the first dialog (GIF, 7.7k), select the "Advanced Installation" radio button and click "Next". (Note: this process may work with the "Easy Installation" method but I have not tested it.)

5. From the "OS/2 Warp Setup and Installation" dialog, select the "TCP/IP Services" check button and click "Next".

6. In the left side of the next dialog window ("Configuration") you will see a tree view which should display two things: "TCP/IP Services" and "Network Adapters and Protocol Services". Click on "TCP/IP Services" and the TCP/IP settings entry fields will be displayed on the right side of the dialog. Select the drive to install these services on from the drop down list. If your network uses DHCP, select this check button (Access Cable does use DHCP; others may not). Now fill in the remaining fields (GIF, 7.8k): "Router", "Host Name", "TCP/IP Domain Name" and "Name Server".

The "Router" for Access Cable is 10.1.0.1; other companies' router addresses will differ. For "Host Name", enter any name you would like your machine to have on the network. For "TCP/IP Domain Name" simply enter "WAVE", or a full domain name, such as wave.ca. Enter the IP address for your name server in the "Name Server" field. Access Cable's name server is 10.1.0.5 but again, your server address will vary.

6. Next, click "Network Adapters and Protocol Services" in the left side of the dialog to display the setup options for your NIC. Again, select the drive to install the services to from the drop down list. Hopefully your NIC has been auto-detected by OS/2 and is listed in the entry field in the right side of the dialog, just under the heading "Current Configuration" (GIF, 5.6k). If it is not, you may have to add it manually by clicking the "Add adapter..." button and selecting an adapter from the list.

Since you asked OS/2 to install TCP/IP, just under the line identifying your network card there should be a line that says "0 - IBM TCP/IP". If there is not, you should click the "Add protocol..." button and select the appropriate line in the pop-up list of protocols (GIF, 5k) for TCP/IP and press "OK".

7. Click the "Install" button and sit back. OS/2 will find all the appropriate drivers and software from the Installation CD and add them to your system. When the installation utility finishes, it will ask you to reboot your machine. Once you do, you should be in business.

8. After rebooting, test the connection by trying to ping your name server. (NOTE: You do not have to perform any "login" to start using TCP/IP services over your cable modem. It is "automatically on" as soon as you boot Warp 4, once it is installed.) To do this, open an OS/2 command prompt and type:

ping 10.1.0.5

(Substitute your name server's IP address in the above line if you are not an Access Cable customer.) Your results should look something like the following:

9. Once you've established that you can see your local name server, try pinging a few other sites. You don't have to use IP addresses; you can ping the more easily remembered domain names such as "www.os2ezine.com" or "www.ibm.com" instead.

10. Once you've established (by pinging sites) that you have a connection the Internet, fire up Netscape Navigator, or your favourite e-mail application or news reader and fill in all the relevant e-mail addresses, passwords and mail and news server addresses and start surfing. You're on the 'net!

Installation Instructions for File and Print Client, AKA NetBEUI

If you want to be able to log on and off your cable company's network and grab files from their servers, you will need to install the "File and Print Client", also referred to as NetBEUI by your cable company. To do this, follow steps 1 through 4 above and then:

1. From the "OS/2 Warp Setup and Installation" dialog, select the "File and Print Client" check button and click "Next".

2. In the left side of the next dialog window ("Configuration") you will see a tree view which should display four things (GIF, 2.3k): "File and Print Sharing Services" and under that, "Network Adapters for File and Print Sharing" and "User ID and Password"; and "Network Adapters and Protocol Services". Click on "File and Print Sharing Services" and the settings entry fields will be displayed on the right side of the dialog. Select the drive to install these services on from the drop down list. Now fill in the "Workstation name" (with anything you want) and "Domain Name" fields (wave.ca in my case -- check with your cable company for your domain name). Leave the check buttons below these fields blank -- make sure the "install sharing" box is NOT checked.

3. Click "User ID and Password" in the left side of the dialog to display the setup options for your account on the network. Enter the user name and password that your cable company representative supplied you with in the appropriate fields.

4. Next, click "Network Adapters and Protocol Services" in the left side of the dialog to display the setup options for your NIC. Again, select the drive to install the services to from the drop down list. As with the TCP/IP installation, your NIC should have been auto-detected by OS/2 and should be listed in the entry field in the right side of the dialog, just under the heading "Current Configuration". If it is not, you may have to add it manually by clicking the "Add adapter..." button and selecting an adapter from the list.

Since you asked OS/2 to install the File and Print Client, just under the line identifying your network card there should be a line that says "0 - IBM OS/2 NETBIOS". This is IBM's name for what Microsoft calls NetBEUI. If this line is not present, you should click the "Add protocol..." button and select the appropriate line in the pop-up list of protocols.

7. Click the "Install" button and sit back. OS/2 will find all the appropriate drivers and software from the Installation CD and add them to your system. When the installation utility finishes, it will ask you to reboot your machine. Once you do, you should be ready to log on to the network.

8. The networking installation routine will have added a new folder to your "Connections" folder called "Network". Open this and you will find a "Logons" folder which contains objects to log on or log off the network. Unlike with Windows 95, you will not be prompted to log on to the network when you boot OS/2. You can log on at any time you wish though, and if you try to access network resources without logging on first, OS/2 will prompt you for a username and password. For now, double click on the Logon object and fill in your username and password. You will briefly see a dialog telling you that you were logged on to the network successfully.

9. Also in the "Network" folder is a folder called "File and Print Client Resource Browser". Basically this folder contains all the folders (one for each remote machine on the network) and other resources available on your "LAN". Browse through them to see what's on the network but remember, most people will not have their machines set up to allow you access to their files. Typically though, your cable company will have a server (in my case it is named "Europa") with some goodies on it that you can copy to your local workstation.

Important note: When setting up NetBEUI with Windows 95 it is extremely important to turn file and print sharing off. This is how you ensure that others on the network are not able to read, copy, and delete files on your computer. With OS/2, I was unsure how to guarantee that file and print sharing was turned off (if you know, please let me know!).

10. That's all there is to it. When you're done playing around on the network, it is a good idea to log yourself off. You can do this with the "Logoff" object in the "Logons" folder or by selecting the appropriate menu item that is now available on the Desktop's pop-up menu.

Happy surfing!