I have a GNet BB0060A DSL modem. It works pretty well but when I first got it years ago I screwed something up and couldn't get in to the web-based user interface any more. It also doesn't have a reset button on the back (though the manual claims it does). It does have an RJ-45 console connector on the back. RJ-45 connectors are the kind you find on normal ethernet cables - like a phone connector but wider. This isn't a network connector though. To connect to it you need an RS-232 null modem cable. RS-232 cables normally have a DB-9 connector on both ends (but are sometimes DB-25). I don't remember what I did to connect to it back then, but Steve at Teksavvy was helpful enough to tell me the connection settings I'd need with the null-modem and the command to recover my modem.

Fast forward to today and Candace has a GNet BB0060B that she got from a friend. They were both on Teksavvy as well and so Candace could use the modem with the same settings. Trouble is, the way the modem was configured was such that the username and password for PPPoE were stored right there in the modem settings. And the web interface username & password don't match what the manual says they are. According to the manual you should be able to go to 192.168.7.1 in a web browser and log in with the username 'DSL' and password 'DSL' (case sensitive). Failing that, the username 'root' and password 'root' should work. You can also try the same username and password over telnet. None of these options worked for me.

So my problem now was to figure out how to get in to the modem settings without a valid username or password and with no reset button available.

I should have made some notes back when I did this for my modem because it would have made this a whole lot easier. I knew I wanted to connect via the console but I couldn't remember everything Steve from Teksavvy had said. So i poked around a bit and tried a few different cables. I'm not sure what the internal wiring is to make the right cable, but if you collect computer parts like I do, sometimes you happen to have what you need. I had a cable for my dead APC UPS which was DB-9 on one end and RJ-45 on the other. Apparently it matches what the GNet BB0060 needs. I used that cable with CuteCom and set it up for 8N1 at 38400 baud (Hyperterminal works fine for Windows users, just do a Direct COM port connection with those settings). That's 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit. The strange thing is that I originally connected at 38400 baud but set to 7E1 (that's what I remembered the settings as) and things seemed to work. Except for letters like 's' or 'g'. While testing it out, all I did was adjust settings, open the serial port, then turn the modem on. If nothing happened I'd close the port, change the settings, open the port then turn it on again. The modem sends out a boot up message every time, so when the settings are correct the boot message shows up within a second or two,

The boot message looks like this:

At the $ prompt you can type a command. A list of commands shows up when you type '?' and press enter:

I tried just using the reset command to reset it to factory defaults but that didn't seem to work. The reboot command did work though, so I figured that I had the communications set up correctly. For more help on some commands, you can follow them with a ?, like "get?" gives a bunch of options. I didn't understand it all but the one thing I finally managed to do was reset the web interface password. Here's what I did:

At both prompts the response is hidden but I typed "DSL". After that I plugged in an the ethernet cable in to my computer and the LAN port. Then I went to http://192.168.7.1 in my web browser and was prompted for a username and password. There I filled in DSL and DSL (uppercase) and got in. Next I dug around and found a Quick Setup menu option where I could fill in the PPPoE username and password. Candace changed them to hers and saved the settings.

I think that after the modem is rebooted though, the web interface password reverted to whatever it was before. The PPPoE username and password are still the same, but I couldn't get in to the web interface again until I went in through the console and reset the password again. Maybe there's a command somewhere to save this stuff in the modem but I haven't found it yet.

Hope this helps someone else with this painful modem.