OT need help with broadband firewall

[Daddy Dee]

OK, just got cable internet installed in my wife's house. I haven't been up to see it yet, but I think it's just an cable modem connected to the ethernet port of her computer. Does that sound right? Anyway, I wanted to get a hardware firewall and need some advice as what to get. It's just a simple connection. Occasionally I'll take my laptop for downloading large files, but most of the time it will be connected to a single computer.

Any help appreciated. What do I need to get?

[toddvj]

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On 7/1/2005 12:41:16 PM Daddy Dee wrote:

...my wife's house....

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Wouldn't that be your house?

I don't have any advice though. Sorry.

[Daddy Dee]

Todd,

Well, yeh, sort of. Our work means that we have two households going at the same time. For a season, anyway. Just now getting her set up in a new city for a new position.

[Colin]

search for router thread in PC forum, cheap $40 router works great, cable company will walk you through any changes!

like this thread on hardware firewalls

http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=63825&forumID=85&catID=25&search=1&searchstring=&sessionID={ADF2FC80-B7FB-444B-B434-6715B7DE4FD0}

[Shade]

The connections for cable modem are pretty simple. The cable goes into the cable modem via coax, and the cable modem connects to the PC's network card via CAT5.

I'd look for a basic cable/dsl router with a built in 4-port switch. The Belkin I use can be found pretty cheap with rebates on occasion. I've heard D-link is pretty good also. Linksys can be found just about everywhere, but I've heard they can be a major PITA to setup, sometimes not taking the settings correctly.

All you need is the router & an extra CAT5 cable. Just leave the coax plugged in the cable modem, and connect the CAT5 from the modem to the WAN port on the router, and connect the network card in the PC to a port on the router's switch via CAT5.

Make sure Windows is setup for DHCP (most likely it already is). The get the default IP for the router from the manual (probably something like 192.168.2.1) and enter that in your browser to access the router's setup. From there you can make sure the firewall's on and setup the port forwarding for some online apps like MSN messenger, IRC, FTP, etc. You do need to setup port forwarding, otherwise those apps will be blocked by the firewall. The port forwarding just tells it what to allow through the firewall, and what PC to go to.

I hope this doesn't look like a lot of work, because it really isn't.

Also, since you have a laptop, you may want to look into a wireless router. If you do, just make sure you turn on the encryption. Otherwise anyone can get on your network. My friend's wife brought her laptop over when she first got it, and found 3 or 4 wireless networks she could access from my apartment. Instant free internet access. The last thing you want is the neighbor's kid to do any hacking from your internet account.

[Marvel]

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On 7/1/2005 7:30:24 PM Shade wrote:

Also, since you have a laptop, you may want to look into a wireless router. If you do, just make sure you turn on the encryption. Otherwise anyone can get on your network. My friend's wife brought her laptop over when she first got it, and found 3 or 4 wireless networks she could access from my apartment. Instant free internet access. The last thing you want is the neighbor's kid to do any hacking from your internet account.

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Or to have the police come knocking on YOUR door because someone else has been sending receiving child porn on your account.

One of the guys in our department goes war driving. He has a laptop with a wireless card, connected to a GPS unit. He finds open wireless access points and it automatically puts them into a database with map locations. He has way over a thousand so far. From Chattanooga down to Charleston, up to Knoxville on to D.C.

Sometimes he does a net send and lets them know.

Setting up the WEP key is easy. I have a Netgear, and it has worked quite well for us at home, and we have about six or seven PCs on it.

[Shade]

Marvel,

I was at a class for some wireless VoIP products from Nortel and got to use some pretty similar software to mark out network coverage areas & identify dead spots. We were just mapping it out over a floor plan, but it would work just as well over a city map for war-driving. Think it was made by Eckahau (spelling?). Pretty cool software.

When you consider that many people do this for fun, and that someone with just a bit of computer saavy can get on an unsecured network in about 1 minute, you shouldn't even consider going wireless without the encryption. There's just too many potential consequences.

[Daddy Dee]

Thank you gentlemen. Found a D-Link Ethernet Router/broadband firewall. Installation was plug and play. I love technology when it works like that.

[Olorin]

Glad to hear you've got it solved, Mr. Dee. I've always liked the D-Link gear myself.

[cyclonecj]

I work at a high school, & was sitting in my office when my laptop popped up with an unsecured wireless available. I thought one of our teachers hooked up an access point without asking, so I went hunting.

Turned out that it was from the apartments across the street from us. I walked the first wing only & found 13 open access points, with only one secured. The rest were wide open, & I had full access to internet as well as computer hard drives.

I had the manager put out a notice, since it is very close to our senior lawn, & I am sure that our students have been using this.

[Marvel]

Our college went from no student computers on the network to about 600, in one year. The student side is separated from the est of the network. We have had students set up their own access points (not allowed), set up their computers to be a router (not allowed), to more. Sometimes they kill off everyones connection.

Besides a WEP key, we also have to put their MAC address into a database. Otherwise, even with the WEP key they don't get anywhere. We had a company install everything and set it up. The first year was awful and it mostly didn't work. We fired them and went back through ourselves. Pulled half the access points and changed antenna. Works a lot better. It is sad that we paid so much money and had to do it over anyway.

The upside is that we had a bunch of access points to place in other locations, to extend our coverage.

We are using Cisco products for this, and they have been super, albeit pricey.

[colterphoto1]

May I ask a related home network question here?

I have a D-link DI 624 router (OLORIN?) that is hardwired via cat-5 to three computers in my home. I had a 'pro' network installer come out to set it up but am still having problems. This guy's been out twice and can't fix the problem. I have swapped the router/firmware once already.

Even with only a single computer hooked up to the router, several times a day I have to power the router down and back up to reestablish connection. The modem works fine solo, just when I have router wired up.

This is a royal pain in the but and makes it impractical to use the computers in remote areas of the house. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Michael

[Daddy Dee]

Michael,

I'm no help with your problem. But, that is a wierd one. What did the pro have to say? Maybe, "it's not supposed to do that!"

[colterphoto1]

The guy came highly recommended but is an idiot. Took 3 hours on first visit, turns out there was a problem with phone wiring in the house. 50 year old wire increased the total impedence on the system, although all cat5 was straight home runs back to the terminal block. Needless to say, he didn't get his $100/hour fee for that visit.

M

[j-malotky]

I would aviod the Linksys if you need to IPSEC VPN into your office. There is a bug that only allows ONE IPSEC tunnel at a time. If a second tunnel is opened, the linksys will drop the first tunnel. Nice feature hey

Stick with the Netgear or d-link as the cheapest options. The integrated firewalls in those boxes are not very good though.

The absolute best low cost hardware firewall is the checkpoint edge or the sofaware boxes. I think the home versions costs $200 to $500 depening on the options and license counts.

Don't count of WEP and MAC lists actually keeping you home network safe. The only thing they are good for is proving you do something to keep people off you network if legal action is ever taken. WEP can be broken in ONE connection attempts with the right tools. Most any off the shelf card does MAC spoofing.

Use WPA2 if it is an option for you. Next is WPA.

If you want to protect your wireless connection, download a copy of AirDefense personal.

JM

[cyclonecj]

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On 7/4/2005 8:33:03 AM colterphoto1 wrote:

several times a day I have to power the router down and back up to reestablish connection.

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It sounds like your connection is PPPoE, where it must be dialed up every time you want to use it, & it automatically disconnects if not in use. If so, you need to set your router to the correct setting so it will run the dialup & login whenever internet is requested. Most routers will also give you a "keepalive" setting so it never disconnects.

[Marvel]

Michael,

Our DSL was set to use PPoE when we got it. I had to set my router to never time out. You need to check in your manual for your router on how to set that. I didn't have to set anything on the modem.

Our phone company tech support always tries to tell us that we MUST be using their software for it to work, but they lie! Once I set the router, our connection is as they say in their ads as "Always On!"

Fortunately, we almost never have a problem with it. It has always been fiber that was cut somewhere else, or their equipment. We have often had at least seven PCs online at one time, and I never have to do anything but power up the computer and open my email or browser.

[Olorin]

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On 7/4/2005 8:33:03 AM colterphoto1 wrote:

May I ask a related home network question here?

I have a D-link DI 624 router (OLORIN?) that is hardwired via cat-5 to three computers in my home. I had a 'pro' network installer come out to set it up but am still having problems. This guy's been out twice and can't fix the problem. I have swapped the router/firmware once already.

Even with only a single computer hooked up to the router, several times a day I have to power the router down and back up to reestablish connection. The modem works fine solo, just when I have router wired up.

This is a royal pain in the but and makes it impractical to use the computers in remote areas of the house. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Michael

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Michael, are you on DSL or cable? DSL is often PPoE, but cable is generally just always on.

This is tricky. Have you exchanged the hardware itself and started completely fresh? Sometimes they are just bad, though that's pretty rare.

Oh I see. . . it's wireless piece . . . so if I understand correctly, you're not even using the antenna side, you're just using the wired side? Is the wireless stuff all disabled? Not that it ought to matter, but let's just eliminate possible problems. Also, you say "with only a single computer" . . . is it always the SAME single computer, or can any one of the computers choke it if you leave it attached? I'm thinking bad/flakey cable to one of the computers or a bad/flakey Ethernet adapter in one of them.

Outside that I go back to questioning the device itself. If you're not going to use the wireless functionality, consider a product like the D-Link DI-808HV. I have two of these -- well basically, what I've installed are older models --and one of it's four-port cousins in three client sites. They've been rock solid performers. One of my clients has rebooted it twice since I put it in a year and a half ago. They're also so so simple to get up and running.