Missing dsl0 interface on DM200?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi all,

Apologies if this has all been covered elsewhere but I haven't been able to turn up an answer in my search. I haven't touched *Wrt since the original Linksys WRT54G but I noticed support for the Netgear DM200, which I have a few of running stock firmware as VDSL bridges on the Australian "NBN", and I'd love to run something more sysadmin-friendly on them.

So I'm following the instructions at https://openwrt.org/toh/netgear/dm200
on a test device (new out of box, from stock that I know works) with some success, however I don't seem to have a "dsl0" interface.

LuCI says "Network device is not present" and while /etc/config/network shows an entry with a plausible MAC address (one digit higher than the working eth0) I can't find "dsl0" in ifconfig output, or kernel dmesg etc.

I don't have an actual VDSL link to plug into my test DM200 unfortunately (working from home under lockdown). Is it possible that the dsl0 interface doesn't show up unless it has line sync? I'm been able to use vdsl_cpe_control to get version info etc. so it seems like there is something alive there.

Am I missing something basic? Thoughts/tips/tricks would be greatly appreciated.

2

In that wiki page I'm missing the actual dsl config. Don't know if that is needed to get the interface up. Have a look here and search for 'config dsl'.

3

Ah, thank you. I haven't quite solved the problem yet (in a "works on boot" way) but that gave me a useful clue.

I manually loaded the ltq_ptm_vr9 module which gave me a "dsl0" interface, so that part looks good. Now to figure out the correct config...

Thanks!

4

Just to try closing the loop on this one, I think my lack of an actual DSL connection to test with was my main problem here.

Having inspected the setup more closely, it seems that the appropriate module is loaded via procd & hotplug.d/dsl scripts on detection of DSL line sync.

So if you have a working DSL line, it looks like it should "just work".