POETRI was developed for Internet access via xDSL with PPPoverEthernet (RFC2516) protocol from Windows NT/2000 and Windows 9x.

POETRI also provides a software solution for connecting multiple computers in any small office/home local area network environment or educational network to the Internet via a single xDSL connection.
POETRI makes use of the Internet routing capabilities of the Microsoft TCP/IP stack, there is no need to replace the Microsoft TCP/IP stack by a third party TCP/IP stack. Developed for computing environments with one IP address, POETRI forwards packets between the xDSL and the IP kernel with address/port translation. In work groups with several real IP addresses POETRI can forward all packets unchanged to the IP kernel.
The number of users supported is only limited by the bandwidth of the connection. POETRI can provide standalone or work group users with full access to Internet applications and resources, e.g. WWW, e-mail, telnet, ftp. Hosts in the LAN can accommodate almost any client node, including PC's Mac's, and Unix machines, as long as they are running a TCP/IP stack.

POETRI is installed as a standard LAN interface NDIS driver under Windows .
POETRI communicates with the xDSL device using the PPPoverEthernet standard. Because of this, POETRI is completely hardware independent. POETRI can be installed and used in parallel to NT RAS.

POETRI supports IP-Masquerading (Network IP Address Translation + Port Mapping ), a technique which allows multiple hosts on a private LAN to share a single IP address.
Private LAN addresses must be mapped to registered IP addresses supplied by your Internet Service Provider. This is known as Network Address Translation. POETRI supports NAT (Network IP Address Translation) as described in RFC 1631.
Port Mapping works by keeping track of source port numbers used by TCP and UDP applications, and mapping each port number to a new number prior to transmission of the packet onto the Internet. A packet received from the Internet will have a destination port number equal to the mapped source port number, and so the original port number and IP addressee can be restored after a table lookup.

POETRI supports DNS Interception for local name lookups. DNS address queries from all LAN clients can be intercepted and answered from a local name table. Optionally DNS queries to pre configured DNS server addresses can be redirected on the fly to dynamic assigned name server addresses.

POETRI comes with an build-in packet filtering Firewall. Extended packet filtering helps you to protect your LAN from attacks from the Internet. Packets can be filtered on host, protocol and port (service) basis. To simplify configuration a learning mode is provided.

POETRI comes with a DHCP/BOOTP Server for automatic Client configuration. To simplify the configuration of LAN Clients for Internet access POETRI is delivered with a combined DHCP/BOOTP server for configuring IP address, DNS nameserver and gateway IP address of the clients.

POETRI is Shareware
POETRI, as it is provided, is a demo version. To make use of the full capabilities of POETRI you have to register the software. The registration fee does not depend on the number of clients that will gain access to the Internet by POETRI. Please read the file poetri.txt (German version: poetri-d.txt) for registration details.

You may test the POETRI software for 30 days without a registration code. If you continue to use the software after this evaluation period you have to register the software, otherwise you are violating the copyright.

The software and this documentation is
Copyright (C) 1999-2000 by Herbert Hanewinkel, Neuried
All Rights Reserved.

It is provided as shareware with the following limitations:
This program is copyrighted and it is not in the public domain.
The unregistered shareware version of POETRI may be freely copied and distributed under the condition that the software must be copied or distributed in the original and unmodified zip file containing the complete package of files (original archive with no files added, modified or removed).
The distribution must be free of charge, except charging for the distribution media itself.
You are prohibited from defeating shareware limits or using an unauthorized password, distributing/including the POETRI software in commercial products, modifying or reverse engineering the POETRI software.

Installation on Windows NT and Windows 9x

1. Unpack the POETRI software into a directory, e.g.: C:\POETRI
2. The installation of the network components require Administrator privilege on Windows NT.
   • Windows 2000: Use the Hardware wizard to install the Network adapter PPPoEthernet Adapter. The driver is supplied in the main POETRI directory. A new LAN connection will be created. Use the properties tab of the new LAN connection to install the network protocol Packet Service Protocol. The driver is supplied in main directory.
   • Windows NT: Use the Control Panel to install the Network adapter PPPoEthernet Adapter. The driver is supplied in sub directory INSMAC. Use the Network Control Panel again to install the Network Service NDIS Packet Service from sub directory INSPKT.
   • Windows 9x: Use the Control Panel to install the Network adapter PPPoEthernet Adapter. The driver is supplied in sub directory WIN95.
3. Bind the TCP/IP protocol to the "PPPoEthernet Adapter".
4. Configure the TCP/IP parameters as specified in the following chapter.
5. If you want to give clients on your LAN access to the Internet through POETRI:
   (Windows 2000 WS only) With the provided rout2000.bat script you can enable or disable IP-Routing on Windows 2000 WS. Activate IP-Routing with rout2000 on.
   (Windows NT only) Activate the IP-Forwarding Option under the TCP/IP protocol settings.
   (Windows 9x only) With the provided routing.bat script you can enable or disable IP-Routing on Windows 9x. Activate IP-Routing with routing on.
6. Reboot Windows.
7. Use ipconfig /all (on Windows NT/2000) or winipcfg (on Windows 9x) to check your network setup and IP parameters.

Configuring the TCP/IP parameters for xDSL Ethernet IP routing:

1. You use an official assigned network or sub network of IP addresses for your Ethernet LAN. In this case you you don't need IP-Masquerading.
2. You have only one static or dynamically assigned IP address, you must use IP-Masquerading and use IP addresses from a private network number range (e.g. 10.0.0.0, 192.168.0.0,..) for the hosts on your LAN. In this case you have to use an software that supports NAT and Port Mapping. POETRI was developed to support this type of internet access.


xDSL-LAN IP Routing with one official IP address:

1. For the xDSL Interface you need two IP addresses of an IP-network. If your provider uses fixed IP addresses you can configure these official IP addresses here. Otherwise use the addresses as given below:

PPPoEthernet interface
IP address: 192.168.2.1
Net mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.2.2
Nameserver: 192.168.2.2 with redirection in POETRI enabled or as specified by your provider

2. Client configuration:

Choose a block of IP addresses from a private IP-network for all hosts on your LAN (all LAN hosts and the router PC). On all hosts, except the router itself, set the default gateway to point to the LAN interface IP address of the router PC.

Router-PC with POETRI, Ethernet interface:
IP address: 192.168.1.1
Net mask: 255.255.255.0
Nameserver: 192.168.2.2 with redirection in POETRI enabled or as specified by your provider

Host 1, Ethernet interface:
IP address: 192.168.1.2
Net mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Nameserver: 192.168.2.2 with redirection in POETRI enabled or as specified by your provider

Host 2, Ethernet interface:
IP address: 192.168.1.3
Net mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Nameserver: 192.168.2.2 with redirection in POETRI enabled or as specified by your provider

.....

Configuration of POETRI

1. Run POETRI.EXE. Be sure the PPPoEthernet Driver and NDIS Packet Service (on Windows NT) are installed.
2. Open the PPPoE Setup menu and configure your ISP specific parameters. In case of PPP with dynamic IP address assignment select NAT with dynamic address, in all other cases select NAT with static address and enter the ISP assigned IP address.
3. Restart POETRI.EXE
4. Open a connection to your ISP to check your set up.
5. Check the configuration with ping from any host in your LAN to an external IP address.

IP-Masquerading (NAT + Port Mapping) and DNS Interception

POETRI supports IP address translation (translation of a private IP address to the official IP address), and Port-mapping (translation of a private IP address:portnumber to a free port number of the official IP address).
1. Port Mapping gives more than one host outgoing internet access at a time through one official IP address. Enable Port Mapping by checking the option. POETRI maps client port numbers to port numbers in the range 61441-62464 of the official IP address. Port Mapping works fine with all "well behaved" TCP/IP applications. Some programs require an additional port for downloading data (VDOlive, RealAudioPlayer,...). For these applications you can define static mapping entries for port number ranges to the assigned local IP address.e.g.
   10000-10010,192.168.1.2
   will forward incoming TCP/UDP packets with port numbers in the range 10000 to 10010 to host 192.168.1.2. On the client set the UDP port number for the application to a port in this range.  Note that in most cases you have to configure the requesting TCP/IP application to use a fixed port number.
   Port Mapping entries can be added or modified on the fly without closing and opening a new connection.
   Port Mapping only works with protocols which use ports i.e. TCP and UDP. For all other protocols (except ICMP) and incoming connections without an mapping entry an address translation is performed. You can set up up to eight IP addresses in a destination IP address list. The default host is selected by checking the IP address in the Control menu. By simply choosing another host, you can switch between hosts on the fly without closing and opening a new connection. In general  an IP address of a local host in the destination IP address list is only required if you want to be able to make this host the default host for incoming connections, e.g. if the host runs a WWW or ftp server.
   Port Mapping can not be used for ping and traceroute, because ICMP Echo Requests don't use port numbers. Due to the importance of ICMP a special mapping technique is implemented.
   A main problem with the concept of NAT is that some applications (FTP is the most notable example) put IP addresses into application layer messages which are transferred between Client and Server. This is a protocol layering violation, that in the case of FTP can be overcome  by using PASV commands rather than PORT commands. (Use of PASV can be selected as an option in almost all FTP Clients including WS_FTP, WAR_FTP and Fetch on the Mac). Anyway POETRI supports PORT sequence number patching in case of FTP, but I recommend using PASV mode. Other applications with protocol layering violation, mainly video conferencing programs, may break.
2. With DNS interception all clients on the LAN can resolve Domain names from a common name table without accessing an external name server. DNS IP address record requests are trapped and the IP addresses are looked up in a local name table. If a matching entry is found a reply is generated and the request dropped. If no match was found the query is forwarded in the standard way.

Menus

To control and monitor the PPPoverEthernet connection the program offers the following menus:

File

PPPoE Setup

dialog box for defining ISP specific parameters. You have to restart the program for modifications to take effect.

Name: Assigns a reference name to the entry.
PPPoE service: Service name to select a specific xDSL provider on your LAN. Normalley not required if only one provider is available.
Mode: Defines the mode of operation.
Out: only outgoing calls are currently allowed
Protocol: Defines the framing protocol for the packets. Only PPP is currently supported.
Protocol options: To define protocol specific parameters.
Unit Adaptive Disconnect with Shorthold of: Adaptive disconnect requires the definition and selection of  units through unit emulation or support of unit messages during the connection.
On expiration of the short hold idle timer, POETRI calculates the remaining time of the current unit. If no further activity occurs the connection will close down a few seconds before the end of the unit was estimated.
Disconnect, if idle for: Defines the idle time-out for this connection. The value is used if a unit depended time-out is not defined.
Idle Timer ignores Received Packets:
If a peer sends packets on a regular basis to test the line, a idle time-out would never occur. The options will force POETRI not to reset the idle timer on incoming packets.
Idle Timer ignores Bcasts & Netbios requests: Broadcast messages and NetBIOS name lookup messages will not reset the idle timer and not open a new connection. They are only transmitted, if a connection is already established.
Peer IP: PPP can assign an IP address to the peer. This IP address can be defined here.
TCP-header compression: PPP will match TCP-header compression with the configuration of the peer. For all other protocols be sure to use the same setting of this option as the peer.
Nameserver-IP: determined automatically from the Windows configuration. Change these addresses only if required.
DNS redirect: enables redirection of DNS request to a dynamically assigned name server.

Units options:
An entry consists of up to 5 pairs of
Starting-hour,length-of-unit-in-seconds
Separate entries for week days and weekend/holidays can be created.
ATTENTION: A length of 0 disables outgoing calls to the peer during the specified hours.

Timer:
Call-Setup: maximum PPPoE Call Setup time.
Pause: pause between call setups and successful connections.
dyn. Timeout: In Shorthold mode a connection is released a few seconds before a unit ends. This
value defines how many seconds before the end of a unit a disconnect will be triggered.

NAT: Network address translation is used to translate between private and official IP addresses.
NAT with dynamic IP assignment should be used if your provider uses PPP with dynamic IP addresses
NAT with static IP has to be used for providers that use fixed official addresses.
Nat can be disabled in case of a fixed official IP address. In this case the official IP address must be configured in the TCP/IP set up of Windows and you can not share your connection with clients on your LAN.

Exit

terminates the program.

View

Status

selects the full status page for display.

Brief status

selects the short status page for display.

Configuration

displays the active configuration.

Log

displays a connection and optionally trace log.

Mapping

displays the active mapping entries.

Trace

PPPoE Setup

logs all messages exchanged with the CAPI software.

PPP Setup

allows to trace the setup of a PPP connection. PPP data packets are not logged.

Application Interface

logs information related to the upper layer interface and additionally DNS queries.

TCP/IP

logs TCP/IP information of all packets. source IP, destination IP and protocol are logged for all IP protocols. Further values depend on the protocol, e.g. source and destination ports are logged for TCP and UDP.
Attention: Use the trace option only for debugging NOT during normal operation.

Control

Connect

manually connects to an IP destination. The initial setting of the repeat dial request option depends on the Preferences configuration.

Disconnect

disconnects an active connection or terminates a repeated dial request.

Reset Statistics

resets all counters.

Auto Dial

enable or disables the auto dial feature.

Preferences

to configure global program options. Selectable are the language of menus and the initial setting of the repeated dial option.
Play Sound: The program beeps on connect and disconnect. If the this option is checked, the program will play the .WAV files assigned to "xDSLup" on connect and "xDSLdown" on disconnect.
Execute on connect/disconnect: A program executed after connection set up can be defined, %i inserts the assigned IP address, %n %s inserts assigned primary and secondary name server addresses.
A program can be executed after disconnect.
Save Log: With this option the log pages  are automatically saved on program exit. If a log file exists the new entries are appended.

Port Mapping

To forward packets with known port numbers to a defined client you can configure entries here. The dialog box allows you add static port mapping entries and the IP address of the client in your that should receive the packets. The static port mapping table must be scanned for every IP packet, therefore you should avoid a long table and make use of port number ranges as far as possible.

Firewall

The dialog box allows you to configure the packet filtering firewall.
A trusted host is allowed to communicate using any protocol or service (port). Protocols and services (ports) can be enabled or disabled on a network address basis. Address rules for a certain protocol or port are scanned sequentially for a match. A match may exclude or include a host or network from communication over this protocol or service.
TCP or UDP protocol can be enabled completly or based on selected services (ports) only.
In learing mode the user will be prompted to allow or deny a service.

Name Resolution

The dialog box configures DNS interception. Set the check mark to enable local name resolution through the name table. Add the IP addresses and the full Internet Domain Name of those hosts you want to resolve locally.

Help

Contents

starts a HTML browser with the manual.

Register

prompts for the license key and your name, company. To activate a license key you have to restart the program. After restart check the Info menu to find out if the license information was accepted.

Info

displays program version information.

Connection state

The state of a connection is displayed on the status page and in place of an icons title by the following codes:
_ = free,
A = active, PPPoE connection up,
L = PPP LCP configuration up,
I = PPP PAP/CHAP configuration up, IPCP configuration started,
P = PPP connection up

Program Startup

POETRI.EXE can be started with the following optional command line arguments:
(You can enter arguments for a Windows program via the Properties entry of Aliases.)

POETRI [Flags] [ConfigFile]

Flags

• -iconic starts POETRI iconified
• -unload unload running copy of POETRI. Prompts the user if a connection is active.
• -terminate disconnect and unload a running copy of POETRI.

ConfigFile specifies the name of the configuration file for POETRI. If the name is not given, it defaults to "POETRI.INI". The configuration file is a readable text file.

Running POETRI as Service

To run POETRI as a service the following files have to be in the same directory:
POETSRV.EXE, POETRI.EXE, POETRI.INI
poetsrv -install
will install POETRI as a service under Windows NT.

The service "PPPoE xDSL Service" can than be started and stopped via the control panel service.
poetsrv -remove
will remove the service "PPPoE xDSL Service" from the system.