Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions router settings NAT/ upnp

Moderate in my world just means that you are using less strict port blocking rules. In other words, you are using NAT, blocking some ports but not strictly restricting it to just web, email and such.

I suspect, but don't know for sure that it is simply doing as you have guessed. Letting you know that UPnP is turned off. It probably now considers the system as "moderate" because UPnP used to make it 'virtually' open. I say "virtually" because UPnP just kind of tricks thing out into working like it's open because it automatically connects everything as needed.

Unless you are having trouble connecting in your games, I wouldn't bother turning UPnP back on just to change the status back to Open. If it does help you to connect or connect faster for games, then I guess you have to make a choice. Denon issues or game issues.

Or invest in a router that allows you to bypass NAT altogether for a single device, as mentioned before. You will want to check with a knowledgeable friend on the same ISP to make sure that will work though. Good odds, it will.

I will look for my drawings of how IPs, NAT and ports work tonight. If nothing else, it will help you understand all those options in the XBOX network configuration screens. It can be very intimidating.

I am pretty good with computers/ect. but networking always seems to give me slight problems...Any drawings/ect. you have would most likely be helpful.

MY router (linksys WRT54G) may have the option to bypass NAT for specific device but I will have to check into it.
Thanks again for all of the input!

Sorry This took longer than I promised. I found the file but it was in an unusual format. I normally use Visio but I was experimenting with some freeware called "Dia" at the time. It took me a bit to remember what the extension stood for and re-download the program.

Pretty nice program for freeware too, I might add. Does great network diagrams and has tons of symbols including the Cisco ones, electrical, civil etc..

Anyways, here is the pic I was referring to that might help provide a visual reference for what i was talking about.

The Red connections are where the home PCs are directly connected through the modem to to thier ISP. They get an actual Internet based IP address and are more or less part of the Internet cloud with very little protection between them and the rest of the world (unless yuo add your own.)

The Blue connections represent home networks where the modem has one single direct connection to the Internet but everything behind it is on a separate local network using 'fake' IP numbers that are not part of the allowable range for true I'net use.

The router translates the local IPs on the home side into the one proper address facing the ISP. This helps to protect the home network because the PCs are not using IP numbers that can be seen out in the big bad Internet world. The MODEM/Router won't allow anything to be translated back through to the local (blue) side unless it is traffic that the blue side requested to get in the first place.

House C shows a couple of PCs protected by a modem using NAS but the modem is also set up to allow 1 PC to have it's own direct connection. This PC might experience less trouble playing games that sometimes get confused by NAS but it is much greater danger of being hacked or infected with viruses because it is exposed out in the wide open internet world.

It also becomes obvious that ISPs often prefer you to use NAS because it doesn't use up nearly as many of their priceless Internet addresses. The world is actually running out of these usable IP addresses as each one must be unique.

Hi Murph:
This is very nice representation. A question to add to this mix.

I have Household B scenario. I have the DSL modem , connected to a linksys 4 port router with wireless. To the router i connect a 8 port switch (wired through one port on router). The switch feeds to 5 rooms in the house and 2 ports on it are connected to a printer and SAN box(Netgear SC101).

With this config, my PCs cannot see the SAN..not sure why.
But when i move the SAN directly to the linksys router, i can see it in all other rooms.

Is the switch not able to give proper IP address to SAN?

Also what media servers are being used to stream to PS3?

Any insight is appreciated.

Regs,
Avi

Well, that's a question with a lot of possible answers. Here is a couple of things you could check. - A basic switch should not interfere with the drive unit talking to the router, but you have proved that somehow it does. So we will concentrate on that for now.

Your router should be the only DHCP server dishing out addresses to all your LAN devices, even if they are behind the switch. The switch, (unless its something a bit more complex) normally does not assign IP addresses. A basic switch's job is make sure that busy devices on one port don't bog down all the other devices on other ports and, of course, to give you more places to plug things into.

Based on that, here are some thoughts.

- Extremely unlikely, but could your switch actually be another router and not a switch? This would actually create yet another network segment and the SC101 stuff I read on their web page says that it will not easily work on a separate segment. Not likely the case. They may look similar but routers usually require more initial setup than a switch. Most switches are auto-sensing, plug and play jobies these days.

- Again a simple question, but have you tried different ports on the switch. Two reasons.
First is that it is not uncommon for a single port on a switch to go bad and just stop working. Sometimes this can be resolved, other times they just physically die.

Secondly, it may have one port (usually the first or last) that can be set up as the 'Uplink' port. That's the port that would normally connect up towards your router. Some switches do not allow you to use an uplink port as a regular port without making some config changes.

- Is your switch 'auto-sensing'? More complex or older switches required you to manually config each port for use. This is not likely a concern as all but really old consumer switches are usually fully automatic in this sense.

-- Sometimes the data tables in a switch get fouled up, specifically something called an ARP table. You may be able to go in and clear this table so it will rebuild itself from scratch. However, I bet you have already done this in a more simple manner by powering the switch down and turning it on again.

-- I read on the Netgear web sight that the SC101 is very sensitive to having all the important network devices turned on in a very specific pattern. Here is the link to the troubleshooting page where I read this.

NetGear SC101 TS Guide

I find it odd that it says you MUST turn on the SC101 before turning on the modem and router. Normally.....You want the DHCP server (the router in this case) to be turned on first. That is because most client devices like to send out the DHCP request (Hey! Can anyone out there give me an IP address?????) as soon the device is turned on. Many, only try once and then give up.

Obviously this one keeps repeating its request until it gets one. But why should it be turned on first? This part scares me a bit but then again, home-consumer devices are not my speciality so this could be more normal than I think.

It is very specific in it's instructions on the way to power things up though, so it might be something to try.

-- Documentation also says it doesn't talk well through a router (two different networks). All of your devices are on the same side of the router so the switch shouldn't make a difference in this manner. It still should all be the same network. It does make me wonder if maybe the switch is trying to do something a bit more fancy with the different physical segments it creates.

If you give me the make and model, we might be able to at least rule that out.

I have some other ideas but they would take longer to explain and I'm all out of my sandwich and chocolate milk so I'll let you make some confirmations on those things then maybe we can narrow it down further.

I also saw mixed up in the Netgear help files a way to connect to the storage device and confirm if and what IP it actually received. It's a command line interface so it's not user friendly. I wouldn't play around with it there unless you are fairly confident with the steps it lays out.

Hopefully this helps get you started. Sometimes these networked storage devices can be very cantankerous. You might find it's just easier to keep it plugged in directly to the router.

BTW, it's a NAS, not a SAN. Picky, I know, but I'm researching SANs right now. They seem to be starting out at around $20K...

Ha! I got all grumpy, searching my post to see where I might have accidentally typed "SAN". I even did a [Find] and then discovered that it was in the post above mine. I'll calm down now. LOL!!!

I'll bet ya that it was a case of his auto-correct feature changing words after he typed them. Sometimes I hate that thing.

Sorry, Murph, I should have been more specific!

I agree with your assessment--I suspect that switch is actually doing routing.