Need help...

[Imakeholesinu]

Gotta router/modem problem. Here's the thing, I got this 2wire modem from SBC, seems like they got rid of the old speedstream modems and started offering these POS ones with built in bitches of a firewall. Anyway, went out and got a netgear router since I missed the sale on the linksys ones. Get home, unpack it and get the router all set up, but the modem won't talk to it. Why? Because of the built in firewall. Well I've tried to disable it and after fooling around with the modem's internal software I found some settings I could use to get the router to authenticate with the modem. Only problem is that everytime I have to do this the modem craps out about 1/2 way through the process and then I have to reset it and re-register it. Sigh. Anyone know anything about 2wire modems? 1701-B is the model number. I just need to know what setting I need to use to get it to talk to the router.

[SineSwiper]

I have a list in front of me of the versions of 399,987 modems. I can't find the word "2wire" anywhere. What the fuck is a "2wire" modem? Do yourself a favor and ditch the modem. Go buy a new one. Any DOCSIS1.1 modem will do. They can't force you to use their own.

[Shellie]

I think its DSL

[SineSwiper]

DSL sux

[Nev]

http://www.2wire.com/

Sine, you're being a nutcase. 2Wire is a pretty common name in networking spaces these days. Even I've heard of it, and networking is easily my weakest suit in the computing world.

Barret: Your router's firewall is a good thing, and I wouldn't advise trying to disable it. I can't tell what your problem is from your description, and as I said, I'm not great with networking in general. I'd advise calling technical support. I know it sucks, but if SBC is a good provider, their people will be pretty competent. Comcast has always been top-notch with me when I've called for help.

[SineSwiper]

The site offers something about DSL and something about a DVR-type device. It would be easy for me to not notice it. Besides, I thought he was talking about a cable modem.

Also, it's always your router's fault. Never forget that. There are a lot of seriously bad firewalls and routers out there. For example, the latest version of ZoneAlarm will slow your connection to half of its normal speed.

[Imakeholesinu]

There is a built in firewall within the DSL modem that I think is cramping up the router from talking to the internet. Do I set the modem to a DMZ and then let the router login to the internet? Also the modem automatically stores my login information and connects automatically to the internet, do I need to somehow disable this feature? I'm using a netgear wireless router.

[Imakeholesinu]

I guess what I'm trying to do is bridge the connection so the modem acts as a regular modem instead of a firewall, but I'm not 100% sure how to do that.

[Nev]

If your router has a firewall, you don't really need the one in the modem too, or at least that would be my guess. I'd try setting the modem to DMZ (demilitarized) mode, yes.

I don't know enough about your setup to help, but I can give a very brief overview of the way routers work.

Routers, at this point, are almost mini-computers (actually, mini-servers) themselves. A router takes the IP address assigned by your provider and uses that IP itself. It then assigns IP addresses - IN A DIFFERENT IP NAMESPACE, meaning that the IP address assigned to your computer by your router won't be unique in the general internet namespace, and will in fact resolve to a different address in the general namespace - to each computer it serves. Packets sent to your computer by your provider are sent to the router, since it is using the IP address your provider gives it. It filters out many bad or malicious packets with the hardware firewall, then sends the remainder on to the machines connected to it on the internally-namespaced IP addresses assigned to machines on your home network.

It can either be doing this with DHCP (dynamic addresses) or static IPs (you set the IP address to be used on both your computer and your router, and it doesn't change). Almost always, the addresses assigned and used by routers on your internal network are in the 192.168.1.xxx range, though I think some routers may let you override this. (Not sure about that though - mine won't, as far as I know). Your router is almost always going to be on 192.168.1.1, and computers attached to it traditionally start at 192.168.1.100 and go up sequentially from there.

DSL modems I really know nothing about, however, and maybe some other kind soul on this board will help out with that one. It does seem a bit odd that the modem has a builtin firewall, but I guess a lot of people don't use routers to connect to the Internet, and without a hardware firewall you get tons upon tons of spam packets and other shitty things. With a hardware firewall on the router, though, you don't need another on the modem, so I'm almost sure you can set the one on the modem to demilitarized (this is what DMZ stands for).

Hope this helps a bit.

[SineSwiper]

No offense, but that explaination of routers was confusing for me, and I know how they work. "Namespace"? You've been programming too long. We aren't even getting into DNS, so "namespace" is confusing.

Anyway, routers work by getting a public IP address from the ISP. It then shares this IP address to the rest of the computers on its internal network. How? Well, the guys that invented the IP standard included certain ranges of IPs for private-class addresses. These addresses can't be used on the general Internet, but the good thing is that anybody can use them within their own network. One very common range that most routers use is 192.168.*.*.

The router has a public IP address on the "public side" and a private-class IP address on the local side (or where your network is). Usually this is 192.168.0.1. The router uses something called IP Masquerading to modify any request that you send out to the Internet to use its own public IP, and then it stores your IP (and destination) into a table, so that it knows that you are communicating with that server.

Lemme give you an example of a transaction:

1. You (a computer with an IP of 192.168.0.100) send a request to Microsoft.com via HTTP.
2. The router (being your gateway) finds this request. Since 192.168.* addresses can't get out on the Internet, it replaces the source IP address on the packet with its own public IP (let's say 24.24.24.24), and sends it to Microsoft.com.
3. After it is sent, the router records that 192.168.0.100 is communicating on the HTTP port with Microsoft.com.
4. Microsoft.com recieves the packet and replies directly to the router (since that was the source IP).
5. The router gets an incoming packet from Microsoft.com via HTTP. The router looks up in its table and sees that 192.168.0.100 was the one that was communicating with Microsoft.com. It then replaces the destination IP with 192.168.0.100 and sends it on its way.
6. You receive the reply from Microsoft.com, eventually get a HTTP handshake established, get the web pages, etc., etc., etc.

Okay, knowing that, the firewall part comes in naturally for a router. If a router gets an incoming packet, and the source IP/port of the packet is not in its table of PCs that are communicating on the net, it rejects the packet. Hardware firewalls like a router are vastly superior to software firewalls such as ZoneAlarm, McAfee, Norton's Security, etc.

Anyway, enough of explanations. The DMZ setting will probably work, though I really wonder if that DSL modem is actually a combination modem/router. It may just be a firewall like you said. In that case, just use the DMZ and I think it will work. The DMZ setting (DeMilitarized Zone) will assign a IP address that is not on the firewall. Any packets that come from or are sent to that address will come back untouched. Set the DMZ IP address to the public address on your router.

(Sorry if I was repeating your advise, Mental.)

[Nev]

Ya know what, Sine, go screw yourself. I was only trying to help. Besides which, my explanation wasn't that bad. I'll admit to being unclear on the IP Masquerading concepts, and my explanation probably reflected that, but it was a hell of a lot more helpful than your original "What's 2Wire? Your modem must suck" comment. So, go fuck your damn mother if you want to bust out with this know-it-all attitude. Sorry for not knowing everything about internet networking, unlike someone who does it for a living, and still had no fucking idea who 2Wire is.

Andrew "in an extremely bad mood tonight, I hate goddamn allergies" Seidman

[Nev]

Righty o. My apologies for being a rude bastard. I felt like several kinds of shit last night, though that's probably no excuse. Honestly, I felt worse than I have in a while...my nose felt like it had blown up to several times its usual size, and I took it out on you. '

However, that being said, I don't think it would kill you to be less condescending, though, Sine.

[Imakeholesinu]

Found some settings, just had to set the modem to bridge mode, everything is right now. TY everyone!