Waiting for Godot...

[mdlbear]

... or whatever the AT&T installer's name is. My window was 8am-5pm, so I can't formally gripe yet, but if he's not here by the time I post this I'll call Sonic and see if they know anything I don't. I have the DSL modem plugged in, with no sign of a signal.

I've been taking advantage of the time to install the DSL router, configure a Linux laptop to talk to it, and study the documentation for Shorewall. According to the latter's page on multiple ISPs, "Connecting multiple firewall interfaces to a common hub or switch is always a bad idea that will result in hard-to-diagnose problems." Oh. So I'll want another interface, and in order to get a version of Shorewall that supports multiple ISP connections I'd have to upgrade the firewall to Etch in any case.

The other option is to configure another box as an interim gateway, get everything working, update all my DNS entries, then swap IP addresses. The obvious candidate is the fileserver, Nova, which has a spare Ethernet port, the mail server, and the master copy of all the web data currently on the gateway. I don't normally like to expose my main fileserver on the Internet, though, so I may use something else. It's not as if I lack spare computers.