FortKnox's Journal: Ask (subset) of slashdot: Routers & Firewalls

I always have run a router for my windows boxes. Used to be a simple 4-way SMC router (SMC7004VBR). Just plugged in a new wireless router in instead of the old reg router (SMC2404WBR) a couple days ago. Now it seems like its simply dropping connection after like 5 or 10 minutes. Both my windows machines have suffered the fate. Mine worse than my wifes (she's been on constantly until last night... dunno what happened there).
Anywho, I'm pretty sure I setup the router the right way. Leasing IPs forever and such. When I look at the ipconfig (even when I lost the web), its returning the correct IP (the IP the router assigned). Here's the funny thing. I use ZoneAlarm for my software firewall. When I turn off zonealarm, all my connections are restored. I don't have to touch the router at all.
Here's the deal. I never changed my setup at all on my windows machines. Everything worked perfectly with the old router. Setup the new router, and I have to turn off zonealarm to connect sometimes. I'm confused even where to consider the problem is... I'd say the router, but without the firewall it works fine... I'd say the firewall, but it worked fine with the old router... any ideas?

Thanks for help ahead of time...

You new router is also a firewall?

[ellem]

Sounds like they are conflicting.

Re:You new router is also a firewall?

[FortKnox]

firewall on router is disabled.

wild ass guess

[grub]

I don't know how ZoneAlarm works but if that and your 'router' (read: "NAT box" :)) are both stateful you might get problems with TCP timeouts or wonky connections. Just on a hunch leave a job pinging out to wherever and see if those ICMP echo replies make it back when your TCP connections drop. A tcpdump would be of help, too.

Like the subject says "wild ass guess".

ohh i know this one...

[kesuki]

the new router has a different ip than the old one doesn't it?

i'd put money(if i had any) that if you check your alerts log on zonealarm that it's showing that it's blocking a bunch of traffic from the 'new' router.

Re:ohh i know this one...

[Talinom]

I run ZoneAlarm. Love the thing. I also run with the hardware firewall enabled on my . [outpost.com]

FK: go into ZoneAlarm's "Firewall" setting and look under "Zones" where you will see your network settings. I have my local DHCP pool marked as "Trusted" and adapter subnet (192.168.1.152/255.255.255.0) set to "Internet." My local DNS server is marked as "Trusted" as well. With the inclusion of the new router it may be assigning from a different IP range (192.168.100.x vs. 192.168.1.x). I'm going to go out on a limb and

It's ZoneAlarm.

[artifex2004]

When you checked your ZA logs, what did they tell you? :)

Check speed and duplex too

[TheConfusedOne]

Did you go from a 10 meg to a 100 meg router/switch with the upgrade? Perhaps your network cards are stuck at the wrong speed and/or duplex. (Mismatched duplex settings can really trash a network connection.)

Aside from that maybe you can boot one of your boxes under Knoppix and see what you get for stats. Start up a terminal, su, ifconfig to check the settings for your network card (it'll probably be eth0). ethtool eth0 to see speed settings and such. netstat -i will show network statistics and you can

is this correct...

[Abm0raz]

Outside line --> Old Router --> Wireless router --> other computers

If this is the case, I suggest a little bit of network arrangement. Here is a diagram [photobucket.com] of what I think it should look like. A big thing with networking is to NEVER have 2 DHCP Servers or 2 NATS on the same network. LOTS of funny stuff can happen. Basically, you want to turn EVERYTHING on the wireless router off and turn it into a wireless HUB instead.

If you have any questions, hop on Yahoo IM (I still see you pop in and out occas