[cspielman]

Hi. Hopefully someone can help me out. I've set up a small network of Macs for a friend/client. All are running Tiger due to old version of FileMaker being used. We have AT&T DSL with 5 static IP's, since that's the quantity they dole out.

What I've done (and have done several times before), is add a wireless router behind the DSL modem, so I can serve up dynamic IP's to anyone in the office, both wired and wireles.

The reason for having the static IP's is really just for one Mac G5 (running Tiger, not any server OS) that acts as a FileMaker server. It's connected directly to the DSL modem. I realize it's not the most secure way to do it, but this is how we access our FileMaker files from outside the office. I also realize that a VPN would likely be better but that's not in scope right now.

I have added a network location to this server and assigned one of the usable static IP's, subnet mask, gateway, etc. I don't believe there are any mistakes there. The server can get to the internet and I can get to the server from outside the office via logmein.com.

But I CAN'T ping the server's IP address from outside the office, or hence access FileMaker!! From inside the office I can, but my understanding is that's not a comparable scenario.

There is no active firewall on the DSL modem or on the server.

I've done this in our prior office, both with AT&T DSL as well as Time Warner Cable, without this similar behavior. We were able to ping the server's static IP just fine. The server in the old location I mean.

Any ideas why I can't ping/access the server's static IP? Thanks

[ibook_steve]

I'm a little confused about your setup. Is it:

modem -> wifi router -> 5 machines

or is it

modem -> server (via ethernet)
modem -> wifi router -> 4 machines

If it's the first setup, then do you have the router set up as a bridge, directly passing data between the machines and the modem, or is it really set up as a router, possibly still distributing addresses to the other machines via DHCP?

In either case, can the 4 other machines get to the Internet? Are they getting their IPs via DHCP?

I'm guessing that this is a bridge vs. router issue.

Steve

[cspielman]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's the second scenario.

But I figured it out (ok, AT&T helped me). Though I had made sure no firewall was active on the dsl modem, I had forgotten to turn off stateful inspections. That blocks external access to the network's IP addresses.

[olePigeon]

I'd suggest buying a 3rd party firewall if AT&T's suggestion is to turn off theirs. Sounds like a dangerous setup.