Need some help setting up my home network

[gtghm]

Ok here goes.

I have a hardware firewall called PiVio Plus that was made for Crossport inc, or something... The company has since sold out to another and no longer supports the product and the company that it sold out to dosen't have any information about the unit.
So I'm on my own...

So the unit looks exactly like a router with 5 ports with 2 mode switches.
It seems pretty obvious and straight forward to set up, as one port labled as Internet and the other 4 as Lan with the 4th port also labled as Uplink.

The push button switchs are located one by the internet port and the other by the 4th lan/uplink port.

To add to the mix I also have a router that I want to use.

Oh and the connection to the world is from a cable modem.

Alrighty then...

I take the cable modem cat 5 out cable to the firewall internet input port.

Then a cat5 cable from one of the 4 ports to the WAN input of the router.

Then from one of the 4 router ports to the Nic in my puter.

Now the problem.
Upon a fresh reboot of the cable modem, firewall, and router and a repair for the nic I can get to the setup screens for both the router and the firewall but thats as far as I can get.

I can go in to the firewall set up and forward the ports that I want like 80 and the mail ones but it still won't connect to the net.
If I remove the firewall from the equasion everything is fine.

I'm thinking that the problem is DHCP.
Now I did try and assign IP addresses to my Nic and my router and use the built in DHCP server in the firewall but that didn't work and I tried the same for the router making the firewall static but that didn't work either.
I assume that I need the first link in the network to be DHCP because of the dynamic addressing of my cable modem but this is the part that I don't understand very well and I have not found a good place to self-teach myself about networking on the net.

At this point the default for all of the peices in my network are DHCP server or DHCP enabled.

I assume that is part of the problem but I don't know which one to make the DHCP server and how to properly assign IP addresses to the rest of the system so that everything is seen by the other things the right way.

Also there are various settings in both the router and the firewall that I don't know or understand what they should be set to.

I'm sure that my problem is just some settings and maybe the proper IP address assigning, :grin , but I just have to admit that I don't have a clue about what I'm trying to do. I could really use some help.

Since a network is supposed to be secure, lol, if we need to get into specifics then maybe PM or email might be better. If it can be done through posting that is fine too as it might help someone else later on...

Thanks guys,
"g"

[t1rhino]

If everything works without the firewall, what's the problem?
Is your router not secure enough for you?

[gtghm]

Well... I don't know, I just thought that the hardware firewall would be better.

Add that little extra, you know...

"g"

[nekromancerus]

Honestly, I don't think the firewall will help out all that much with security but here goes anyways.

For our example, I'm going to pretend that the cable modem assigns an IP of 60.6.6.6.

You want the firewall to act as a DHCP server and to get it's IP addy dynamically from the cable modem (unless your ISP assigned you a number then make it static). For the firewall's DHCP range that it assigns make it something like 10.0.0.2 - 10.0.0.9. Also, assign the internal IP address to 10.0.0.1.

So far we have:
firewall external IP: 60.6.6.6
firewall internal IP (going to be router's gateway): 10.0.0.1
firewall's DHCP range: 10.0.0.2 - 10.0.0.9

Now, when you hook the router into the firewall it's going to take the first available IP address (10.0.0.2). Then you want to assign the router's internal IP address to 10.0.0.10 and give it a DHCP range of 10.0.0.11 - 10.0.0.255.

Current information:
firewall external IP: 60.6.6.6
firewall internal IP (going to be router's gateway): 10.0.0.1
firewall's DHCP range: 10.0.0.2 - 10.0.0.9

router external IP: 10.0.0.2
router internal IP (going to be PC's gateway): 10.0.0.10
router DHCP range: 10.0.0.11 - 10.0.0.255

Next you want to plug everything in in this order.
wall --> cable modem --> firewall --> router --> PC(s)

I'm too lazy to review what I wrote but make sure you assign the router a gateway of 10.0.0.1 and your PC(s) a gateway of 10.0.0.10. (EDIT -- Derrr, the gateway should be assigned automatically by DHCP so only do this if it's not auto-assigned. My brain is turned off right now so that I can understand users better since I'm at work.)

Now that everything is hooked up and has been assigned an IP address from the preceeding item in the line you should have internet connectivity.

As for port forwarding, you don't need to activate any of that unless you have a server that you want shared with the world. For example, you would need to forward port 80 if you had an FTP server running on port 80.

Ok, I think I've covered enough for now so if you need some more help just drop me a PM or email. :aol:

-- Nekromancerus

[Templar]

I'd love to figure out what the problem is, but if you just want a solution, ditch the hardware firewall and get some kind of software firewall, or just use the router or Window's built in (if you have Xp, that is).

If they arn't supporting your product, that means if a vulnerability is found, they probably won't fix it, so it may pose more risk than provides protection :) That's an if though.

You might wanna try putting the firewall behind the router and see if that works. Plug the Cat5 from the Cable modem to the WAN port of the router and then plug the firewall into the Uplink and plug your PCs into the firewall.

[gtghm]

Templar said
I'd love to figure out what the problem is, but if you just want a solution, ditch the hardware firewall and get some kind of software firewall, or just use the router or Window's built in (if you have Xp, that is).

If they arn't supporting your product, that means if a vulnerability is found, they probably won't fix it, so it may pose more risk than provides protection :) That's an if though.

You might wanna try putting the firewall behind the router and see if that works. Plug the Cat5 from the Cable modem to the WAN port of the router and then plug the firewall into the Uplink and plug your PCs into the firewall.

Yea that's what I'm trying to do.

I have XP and I could use the XP firewall, I have tried several software ones and they seem to be ok.

I didn't know that the router acts as a firewall.

It never occured to switch it around the other way although I did try getting it going using just the Cable modem and the Firewall with out the router and that didn't work.

I just assumed that one would want the firewall in front of the router...

Honestly I'm messing with it for a couple of reasons.

1) because it was given to me free and I have it, so it seems kinda stupid not to try and use it.

2) I didn't know that my stuff was any less or more secure with out it.

I thought that adding it in would add in better firewall portection than the router and the built in softeware firewall in XP.

Now all that may or may not be true I don't know.
I have to admit that I know next to nothing about this part of computing, and that I know less about how secure or insecure any particular part of the network is... And it seems, that unlike most things about computing, I have found it very difficult to find tutorials and information that would allow me to gain a better understanding of it on the web and become self informed about how to set up networks and stuff.

If I truly have nothing to gain by creating such a network monster then I can except that, but then it becomes a matter of doing it so I learn form it and not have the thing kick my butt like its currently doing. :grin...

"g"