Linux Format forums

[finemesh]

I'm new to broadband, and I've just subscribed to plusNet. The supplied Voyager 105 USB modem doesn't work with Smoothwall apparently - so I need to know what will!

I'm guessing that if I buy something like a Netgear DG834 adsl modem/router, and connect that to the phone line, I can then connect Smoothwall to it through ethernet and route my internet connection through Smoothwall (assuming 2 network cards on the Smoothwall machine).

As an alternative, the Zoom X5V sounds tempting - with integrated VOIP functions and only £44.69 at eBuyer - but I fear it may just give me more chances to mess up than I need!

Any suggestions or help would be welcome, particularly suggestions for pieces of kit which will work!

Thanks in advance all!

[A-Wing]

I believe the speedtouch 330 USB ADSL will work with later versions of smoothwall but you will need to install the firmware from the drivers CD as noted in the FAQ for smoothwall.
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Andrew Hutchings, Linux Jedi
www.a-wing.co.uk

[Rhakios]

Well, I have a Netgear DG814 connected to my Smoothwall, so I suppose the 834 will work the same. The only thing I do is to connect a laptop to one of the other ethernet ports on the router for setup/administration to save opening up anything in Smoothwall to let me access it from the other side.

Smoothwall get's it's IP address from the router via DHCP (I restricted the range of addresses the router can hand out), then the rest of my network uses fixed IPs with a customised /etc/hosts file on each computer inside the network to give me access to and from each by name. This isn't much of a problem when you only have a small number of boxes, though if you are running a large number of boxes I suppose it would be.
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Bye, Rhakios

[sandyman]

You could always try a D-Link DSL-300T ethernet ADSL modem. Theres a review here

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/hardware/reviews/2004/q4/dlink-dsl300t.asp

[nelz]

I bought one of these, because a pure modem seemed a better choice to go with my separate router. It is terribly unreliable, often dropping the connection and needed a power cycle to reset. I switched back to my eBuyer 4-port modem/router, now set up to work as a modem only, and it's been totally reliable, as it had been for the previous couple of years.

I've just bought another one for my Mum to replace the godawful USB thing that Tiscali sent her. That thing wouldn't even work with WinXP.

[A-Wing]

We have a netgear wireless ADSL router in the office and I have a 3Com wireless one at home. The netgear one is pretty crap, needs a reboot once every few days and has some very strange packet filtering rules in it. The 3Com goes about 60 days without a reboot, and that is usually due to an ISP / phone line problem.
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Andrew Hutchings, Linux Jedi
www.a-wing.co.uk

[youlikeicecream]

Not sure how relevant this is but ... I use a cable modem, NTL.

I bought a router and it NEVER goes down, I NEVER have to reboot it, Basically it is just a cheap 'Peak' router and I love it. It does have its quirks, and really I should have bought a more expensive one. I have now added a wireless router to my network as well and have basically secured the wireless router using a coyote firewall box. It gives out IPs to anyone on the wireless network but their mac address needs to be registered with coyote in order for clients to get any network/internet access.

At the end of the day it makes more sense and will save you plenty of time having a router, whether you have Cable or ADSL .

Hope it helps
Mike

[nelz]

The difference is that your router is just a router. If anything is going to fail, it is the modem side of things. My modem/router is rock-solid, my D-Link modem was not. My NTL cable connection also used to be incredibly flaky, according to my router logs.
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"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)

[youlikeicecream]

I know what you mean. I used to work 5 mins from house, we had NTL there and I had NTL at home. MY connection has Always been superb, yet the connection where I used to work was so flaky, it would go down every hour or two.

The only time I had any problems with connection was 1) when NTLs DHCP went AWOL and 2) when I didn't pay my bill for a little while. -lol

Mike

[finemesh]

Hi again - just got fixed!

I got the Zoom X5v (couldn't resist the VoIP thing), and I just set it up as an ethernet-connected router. Smoothwall was happy about it, all I had to do was log in as root and run the setup command again. All my log files etc still intact!

Smoothwall doubly happy, since I now get NO entries in the firewall log file! (the Zoom has a built-in hardware firewall). I get some weird messages in the intrusion detection log, so I'm off to the 'snort' homepage for explanations.

Question: do I need a smoothwall if the Zoom has a built-in firewall?

Anyway, thanks for all the responses.

[Rhakios]

That depends on the nature of the Zoom firewall. A lot of ADSL modem/routers say they have a firewall when all they really do is NAT. If that is the case I would keep Smoothwall. If it's something better than that and allows you to configure individual ports for particular services and provides some level of reporting (you would want to know if someone is making persistent attempts to crack your system) then you might feel safe ditching Smoothwall.
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Bye, Rhakios

[AJB2K3]

I was about to say that i have the zoom x4 and smothwall is happy with it(with the internal FW also active).

[ollie]

i use a d-link dsl-504 modem/router at home and a netgear dg834g modem/router/wireless at work in oz and don't have any hassles with either. i have heard of hassles with the speedtouch modems and modem/routers so have never really bothered outside of d-link and netgear

[wyliecoyoteuk]

Our smoothwall works fine with our zoom X4.

Only thing is we now want to implement VPN... and it looks like double NATing is a nono
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