Setting up a WRT54GS v6 on Suse Linux 10.0 - stumped

Question

Here's the sillyness - I can get the 198.162.1.1 browser configuration thingy to do its stuff, when I plug the ethernet card into the ethernet port - obvious right
Except, (by the way my hosue mate bought this thing, without consulting me, so i'm in the deep end with it) the salesperson, has said that you got to plug this ethernet card to the internet port (...), because the 'broadband router' has to be plugged into a modem - except, and here's the punchline, my modem is a speedtouch 330 usb *sob*.
So, you hook up the interent plug with the ethernet cable and.. /etc/init.d/network start and.. oh it doesn't get an ip address on the go. shocking. I've already half killed my self setting that thing up, so any help on this problem would make you a saintified being in my eyes
Thankyou, and I Love you( - thats for when you tell me what to do),
Dave (huperekchuno)

Answer 1

That does not work. You cannot use a USB modem with a Linksys router.
The setup has to be: modem connects to the internet port of the router, computers connect to LAN ports of the router. Obviously that is not possible when you have a USB modem.
If you have to use the USB modem than you must connect a computer to the modem. First, that computer is directly connected to the internet. Any function of the router like the firewall or NAT does not apply to that computer. You must carefully protect the computer as it is completely exposed to the internet and the gateway to your LAN. Also you are not able to connect to any computers that you will later connect to the router LAN if you go through its internet/WAN port.
So if you connect the USB modem to a computer and want to use the router, the computer must be setup as bridge or gateway, depending on your ISP. You can use it as simple bridge (i.e. it just forwards packets from the ethernet card to the USB modem and vice versa) if your ISP allows multiple connections at a time. If not, you must set it up as gateway (thus, in the end you have to replicate exactly what the router is also doing...), i.e. the computer connects to the internet and you use what is called "Internet Sharing" on windows. The computer creates a LAN on with your ethernet card. It does address translation. between private LAN addresses and the WAN address from your ISP. Please note that this creates a second LAN different from the one that the router does. Again, look for something called internet sharing to use a internet connection of one computers on other computers connected to a LAN.
It would probably be easier, if you would not even use the WRT as router at all. Just setup an internet sharing network using only the LAN switch ports of the WRT (turn off the DHCP server of the WRT). That way the WRT acts as wireless bridge but does nothing else.
My suggestion would be: get a ethernet modem where you connect via ethernet. That setup is much simpler and all computers run in the router LAN while the router does firewall, NAT etc...