“I am setting up a DSL and my topology is simple: Linux box
connects to hub, which connects to 675, which connects to the DSL
carrier. … The Linux machine does not see beyond the router
(the Cisco 675) to the DNS, nor can the web connect to it, though
it should be able to using static IPs. …in the documentation
there is a note: “must have termcap database installed on Linux or
Cisco 675 may not work correctly.”
“It sounds as if your network setup on the Linux machine is
missing a default router (or gateway) in the configuration. If you
type route -n, you will see a list of the routing table that the
kernel maintains. The default route is the one the kernel will
choose for network packets in the event no other paths are possible
to the destination. In addition to having a default route, you will
also need to have DNS set up properly or you won’t be able to
resolve domain names into IP addresses which is how network
communications happen. Thus, if you can ping the IP address of your
DSL router and no further, then it is likely you are missing a
default route. If you have a default route defined (it should be
the 675 router) and you are unable to ping a site such as
www.linux.org, then DNS is probably not configured properly. About
the termcap statement: termcap is a library that provides a
database of the terminal capabilities of various terminal
emulations. It is not required to use the 675 for networking
purposes. However, if you need to access the embedded operating
system on the router, you can telnet to it (or use a direct serial
connection–I’m guessing because I have never seen a 675) and
access its built-in features. This is where the termcap would be
required, as it will use some type of terminal emulation for which
your terminal will need to know the mappings for what the character
sequences do. So, it is necessary only if you intend to log in to
the router and change the settings.”