ClassicConnect

[VCSMaster]

Hello folks, I've actually got a pair of Philips WebTV boxes laying around, and I'd love to get them going. A few months ago, I actually bought a wireless keyboard with the hopes of getting these things setup, but I was unable to actually establish a connection to Redialed!

Their server side modem seems to be connected over an intermittent VoIP service at best, meaning using my landline to connect is not really an option (I spent several days troubleshooting this. I was able to send and receive G3 fax transmissions from Germany, a connect speed faster than 14.4 to satisfy the setup program should be no problem!).

However, I have a secret weapon: Several pieces of actual carrier grade dial up gear!

Most of the guides I can find seem to revolve around someone with an RPi and a USB modem intending to connect to the WebTV with a 9V battery between the two, and don't actually intend for you to ever use the service with "real" modems. I can get the WebTV to handshake with the various RAS hardware in my collection, I've done the serial number decoding to get the login information and make sure that it can authenticate with my various RAS devices, but the real problem is on the network side!

It is my understanding that there are only a few IP addresses that need to be forwarded for Redialed to function, but I have had zero success in getting these redirects to actually work! The WebTV is expecting servers at local addresses (192.168.x.y) and there doesn't seem to be a good way to route this traffic. I wasn't able to get it working in Windows Server 2003 with my Eicon DIVA PRIs, nor my Lucent PortMaster 3A, nor my Shiva LANRover, nor my Patton Dialfire 2960/16.

Any thoughts on how I can forward this traffic? It looks like there is a shell script for the RPis that makes it easy, but nobody in their Discord knows anything about Windows or RAS hardware apparently.

Help is appreciated if it can be offered. Thanks!

[JarHead]

iirc windows doesn't have the functionality needed to route the IPs, your best bet would probably be to spin up a linux machine (if your setup supports it) and use iptables or nftables to route the IPs the box requests to redialed's IP. if you want IRC and messenger to work, you'll also have to route the following IPs to a DNS server of your choosing:

157.57.221.51
210.150.22.35
210.150.22.65

i've never messed with any proper dial-up gear, but i did some quick searching and found page 3-21 of the portmaster 3A configuration guide, which details "Setting Static Routes". again, i've never messed with dial-up gear so it's entirely possible this is completely different, but to me it sounds like exactly what would be needed.

side note - when dialing, does your box say "dialing toll free" or "dialing XXXXXXX" above the progress bar? if it's the latter, you have a tellyscript, which can be dumped and preserved with help from the redialed server admin - let me know and i can get you set up. in the meantime, if the box asks "have you moved?", say no.

[VCSMaster]