The Conexant AccessRunner
Background
I've said a fair bit about the Conexant AccessRunner in the IPv6 information page. I thought I'd provide a bit more information about it here in case you're interested in a similar setup.
Basically, the AccessRunner is a card encapsulating the Conexant 3805 chipset. This can interface by either PCI or USB, but I only have experience with the PCI interface myself. The card is a single multi-function device, listed as follows by "lspci -v":
00:09.0 System peripheral: Conexant ADSL AccessRunner PCI Arbitration Device (rev 01) Subsystem: Conexant ADSL AccessRunner PCI Arbitration Device Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11 BIST result: 00 Memory at d5013000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64] Memory at d5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2 00:09.1 ATM network controller: Conexant AccessRunner PCI ADSL Interface Device (rev 01) Subsystem: Conexant AccessRunner PCI ADSL Interface Device Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11 Memory at d5010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128] Memory at d5011000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
As you can see, the card is an ADSL modem and ATM card in one package. This is perfect for the UK market, as PPPoA is used as long as BT provides your local loop, and as much as I hate it, they provide by far most of the local loops in this country.
The AccessRunner driver is quite a clever piece of kit, and so it should be — the kernel module is over half a megabyte in size! Anyway, this provides access to the card from the Linux ATM layer, and combined with a PPPD and kernel supporting PPPoA, connections to any ADSL ISP can be made very quickly. Apart from slight latency improvements, the major advantage over using an external router is that you will have complete control over all packets coming into your network layer.
Statistics
The drive itself provides quite a lot of useful and/or interesting information about the current connection. Here's an example of some of the information it can give you:
Conexant AccessRunner PCI ADSL Modem Adapter Status ---------------------------------- ADSL Line Connected Line Rates: Receive 576 kbps Transmit 288 kbps ADSL Modulation:G.DMT, Rate Unlimited / Full Rate ATM Virtual Channel IDs: VPI: 0 VCI: 38 Physical Layer Stats: Receive Transmit Noise Margin 33.16/ -5.08: 96 127.99/127.99: 0 Attenuation 21.02 24.50 Power -38 ATM Link Stats: Receive Transmit Bytes 215144437 168997761 Cells 4059329 3188637 Management Cells 0 3 CLP=0 Cells 4059329 1 CLP=1 Cells 0 3188636 HEC Errors 0 Alignment Errors 0 Unroutable Cells 6 AAL Link Stats: Receive Transmit Good Bytes 194534688 152791104 Good Frames 442589 458746 Discarded Bytes 237072 Discarded Frames 321 CRC Errors 273 Invalid Length Errors 48 Timeout Errors 0 ATM Channel Stats: Receive Transmit Bytes 215144437 168997602 Cells 4059329 3188634 Mgmt Cells 0 1 CLP=0 Cells 4059329 0 CLP=1 Cells 0 3188634 HEC Errors 0 Alignment Errors 0 Unroutable Cells 0 AAL 5 Channel Stats: Receive Transmit Good Bytes 194534688 152791104 Good Frames 442589 458746 Discarded Bytes 237072 Discarded Frames 321 CRC Errors 273 Invalid Length Errors 48 Timeout Errors 0 Driver version - 6.1.2.007 (09102001) EE PROM Mac Address 00.d0.41.03.77.b2