[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Our school recently switched to a cable broadband provider (Road Runner Business Class here in central Texas), and we've installed a Netgear VPN/firewall router (which connects to a half-dozen AirPort stations). The firewall was left with the stock configuration, with me having entered only the static IP address from the broadband provider, and setting it to act as a DHCP server for our LAN.

With this setup, our connection would go completely down the tubes after a few hours; unplugging the modem and plugging it back in would give a few more hours of service. I might think that it's some firewall configuration error on my part, except that the cable people tell me that they detect the modem being "offline" when things are wrong. (And the modem's "ready" light begins flashing or else goes out completely.) Also, during one line test when the modem was working, they reported a 31% packet loss.

We had the modem replaced yesterday, and we'll see if the problem is solved. However, I want to be a bit more prepared if it isn't. (I'm pretty good at LAN networking, and at WAN stuff once everything is established; my knowledge is poor right at the point where the two meet.)

Is it _possible_ for the firewall (on the LAN side of things) to foul up the cable modem so as to make it unreachable from the WAN side of things?


Note: I had removed the firewall before and tested things with just a single iBook attached to the modem. I didn't notice any connection degradation, even after (what seemed to be) more time than the firewalled setup usually took to cut out; on the other hand, the last time the firewall setup was tested before the modem replacement, the connection seemed to have been up for far longer than usual, too,
so the iBook-only test isn't really conclusive.


Any input is appreciated.


Thanks and regards,

DayLateDon

[Scotttheking]

Is the netgear a FVS318? If not, what is it?

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


The router is indeed a Netgear FVS318 (8 Port VPN Firewall Router).

[ghporter]

Nothing on the LAN side of your cable modem should have any affect on the WAN side. Likewise, nothing on the LAN side of your firewall router should affect the WAN side of the router.

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...

Nothing on the LAN side of your cable modem should have any affect on the WAN side.

That certainly confirms my intuition on the matter.

However, every call to the cable people has included being asked whether I have a router hooked up and whether I've tried having just one computer hooked up.

One tech support guy even mentioned that the few-hour delay before connection drop-off might be due to idle time on the firewall, seeming to suggest that if I weren't using my connection constantly all day long, I should almost _expect_ this kind of problem. (The next tech support guy said that explanation was bunk. especially in our situtation.)

So, even though I had my intuition, I've been left wondering if that intuition could have been wrong.


Hopefully, this whole conversation will be moot when I get into work in a while and find the new modem chugging along. We'll see.


Thanks,

DayLateDon

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Just to close out this thread.


Fully four Road Runner guys visited our site over the course of a week. Each did a standard check of the signal (using a "hook meter" at the point where our connection meets the "tap"), one swapped out our modem, and none could see a problem on their side.

Only the last guy refused to let that be the end of it. (To be fair, the next-to-last guy was also determined to solve the problem, but just didn't see the solution right away.) He did a bit of head-scratching, and he double-checked everything with the home office.

Ultimately, he simply changed our access port on the "tap", and we've been zipping right along ever since.


Thanks for the input.

DayLateDon

[ghporter]

I didn't know that scrawny bird could say "Doh!" Cool for you!