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TiVoNet and DHCP
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Posted by: joedog

A question before going out and buying TiVoNet. Maybe it's best asked of the fine folks at 9th Tee, but here goes:

How does it handle DHCP? I'm using AT&T Broadband cable modem service, which was formerly @home. @home would make you buy static IPs for more than one computer, but AT&T seems to just let you hook up multiple clients using DHCP. Drawback of course is that you can't get a static IP if you want one, which sucks because I used to be able to access my home computer over ftp.

Should I be able to run a cable from my TiVoNet-equiped wonderbox to the hub that's connected to my cablemodem, and let it find its own address? Or should I get a NAT router device like the Linksys BEFSR11 and give the TiVo a static "private" address like 192.168.0.x ?

I'm not clever/patient enough to weed through the Linux TiVoNet scripts that people have posted to see if maybe they have DHCP enabled, but I assume it can be done...:)

Posted by: embeem

Putting the tivo directly on the internet is a foolish thing; go for the NAT and a static internal ip address.

(last thing you need is some random internet surfer messing around with your copy of tivoweb)

Posted by: Black_Dragon

The TiVo has exactly ZERO security. It would be extreamly foolish to give it a routable IP. I suggest you invest in a hardware or software firewall and put the tivo safely behind it.

Posted by: jnk27

Yes by all means put it behind a firewall.
The truth about a NAT lies in what it hides--A TiVaUx.

Posted by: StanSimmons

From what I have been told, the DHCP Client daemon for TiVo either doesn't exist or is flawed in some manner... It has been over a year and I don't remember what the details were.

I have my TiVos set on fixed, fake IPs -- 192.168.1.51 & 192.168.1.52. These are behind a Linksys BEFSR41 Cable/DSL Router. The router provides NAT & DHCP, the default for it provides a DHCP range of 192.168.1.100-200.

The Linksys router will connect to the cable modem and request a DHCP address from AT&T, then any PC's that you have inside your network will request a DHCP address from the Linksys. The TiVo's will have fixed addresses that talk to the Linksys.

Posted by: Scutter

You really should have a firewall too. NAT will provide a tiny amount of security, but spoofing packets is fairly trivial.

FP

Posted by: Worf

quote:
Originally posted by embeem
Putting the tivo directly on the internet is a foolish thing; go for the NAT and a static internal ip address.

(last thing you need is some random internet surfer messing around with your copy of tivoweb)

Heh, but I think if another Code Red or Nimda breaks out, you'll have days and weeks of stutters and other problems as all those web accesses hit TiVoWeb, taking CPU cycles away from the main TiVo functionality :).

(Hrm. DoS attacks that keep you from your TV...).

Posted by: embeem

I know you were joking worf, but has anyone ever looked to see if high network traffic on the network hub (not switch) can cause problems for the TiVo?

I'm not talking traffic directed at the the TiVo, but the fact that a hub will broadcast any traffic over all ports -- Typically network cards will filter traffic based on mac/hw address though unless in promisc mode so I don't suppose it would be much of an issue.

Posted by: StanSimmons

I have two SA TiVo's on a 10Mb hub along with a print server. I have not noticed any problems with either of the TiVo's when there is traffic on the hub (from TiVo DL's or print jobs.) The hub is off of a switch, so the only traffic it sees is from these three devices.

While this is not a real test, it does show that light traffic shouldn't be an issue.

Posted by: Worf

I doubt high network traffic will actually hurt the performance of the TiVo, even when using a hub.

Mainly because unless the network card is set to promiscuous mode, it scans network traffic for it's MAC address or the broadcast address. If the packet doesn't have either of those addresses, the NIC filters it out, and the host computer doesn't get an interrupt. (Otherwise, there would be no need for promiscuous mode - if the NICs interrupted the CPU everytime a packet arrived, it's a trivial hack to monitor network traffic). And I don't think people will be putting their TiVo NICs into promiscuous mode (heh. TiVo Ethereal... monitor network traffic from your TV screen :)).

Of course, I suppose if you have enough Windows machines on a network with a TiVo... (since Windows SMB just *LOVES* broadcast packets).

Posted by: MighTiVo

quote:
Originally posted by Scutter
You really should have a firewall too. NAT will provide a tiny amount of security, but spoofing packets is fairly trivial.

FP

But getting spoofed packets through a NAT device (it should not pick up LAN addressed packets on the WAN port) or doing anything but dneial of service is not trivial.

The real danger in NAT lies in port mappings, once you do that you are wide open on that port to that device and if that device has a vulnerability that can be comprimised through that port.....