2wire router configuration

I am posting this because I struggled to disable the
firewall on this router and to configure my network
using it with a NetBSD, and 2 FreeBSD hosts.

2Wire 3800HGV-B Configuration for Static IP (well almost static)

In order to configure this you will need a laptop
computer which has wireless set to DHCP, or a wired
networked computer plugged directly into it with
inet 192.168.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
default router 192.168.1.254

So that you can get to the configuration page at
http://192.168.1.254
and
http://192.168.1.254/management

Somethings where easier from the /management
page, but for initial setup just use
http://192.168.1.254/

Step 1
Go to Home Network -> Advanced Settings
Note X means radio button is checked.

Public Routed Subinterface

X Enable
Router Address: XX.XX.XX.XX
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.XXX
X Auto Firewall Open
X Default DHCP Pool

Put in the router and netmask that the ISP supplies.
When the tech came out for the "full tech install"
he had no clue what it was and I had to call the
800 number and jump through a lot of hoops to
get this information. Very sad.

The manual from 2wire left out checking the
Default DHCP Pool radio button. ARGHHHHHH!

Step 2
Configure host to use DHCP with host name sent

On FreeBSD (use your interface name)

/etc/dhclient.conf

interface "en0" {
send host-name "yourhost.yourdoamin.com";
}

/etc/rc.conf

ifconfig_en0="dhcp"

reboot

Step 3
Go to Home Network -> Advanced Settings -> EDIT ADDRESS ALLOCATION
For each host select the IP address from the right pulldown menu.
(No I am not yelling at you. It is in all caps on the page)

Step 4
reconfigure host to use a static IP configuration
reboot

Do this one by one for each host.
For some reason my third host would not connect to the DHCP
server until I plugged a switch into the RG and the host into
the switch. Since it was on the 3rd out of 4 ports I would not
expect it to be an uplink port until the 4th port. However
since the people designing this thing were insane, it wouldn't
surprise me.

So unless someone knows a better method you must do 4 separate
configurations for each host to actually have a "Static IP".
Using DHCP to get a Static IP has to be the most counterintuitive
and assinine way to go about it. The logical irony of using
DHCP to obtain a Static IP is the ultimate in absurdity. If
you have a large network, and use truly static IP's this is
going to make your life very hard.

Sometimes network administrators assign a specific IP to a
specific MAC for security reasons in a DHCP server configuration.
However this is for the convenience of the Network Administrator
so that if the network gets reorganized, they simply update
the DHCP server and have the client reboot. This is
also silly on a grand scale. The point of DHCP is so that
you do not have to configure each host, which that would
actually end up having you do. DHCP is best used for
clients in which you don't care which IP they get.

Several years ago I had an AT&T cable modem hookup. They
assigned "static" IPs via a DHCP server so that they
could monitor your traffic. So it was for security reasons
not ease of configuration (That would be their security
not mine). So when they reorganized the network, someone
had to go and update the configuration for all those
hosts, granted it was on the DHCP server instead of the
host. Yes, this might be a legitimate use of DHCP, and
I am sure the designer of this router and his mother
will post saying I don't understand DHCP. However to
force me to use DHCP to configure a bation host
which serves DNS and truly has to be static is
assinine and more than just frustrating or annoying.
It is enough to make me want to cancel service and
use someone else. Or at least warn others so they
don't make the same mistake.

If I reboot my name server, I cannot have the RG assign it
a new address, so I set it static. If it is static it is
not dynamic and I shouldn't be using DHCP! ARGHHHHH! It
is difficult for me to even do such a silly round about
way of getting what I could have gotten simply by configuring
the host ONCE instead of 4 times! Also pray that the
technician you endup with if you ever call tech support
doesn't ask you to reset the RG to factory defaults
by holding the button on the back or upgrading your
firmware doesn't wipe out your settings. Otherwise
you may have to start over with this process. ARGHHHH!

So buyer beware. Before getting service call the ISP and
ask which router they use and find out if they allow you
to use a different router if they have this one. Otherwise
go to a different vendor.

This is what happens when marketing people design a
router.

Other notes

I had random success setting the host to 192.168.1.1
and then going to "EDIT ADDRESS ALLOCATION" setting
it to "static - no DHCP" and then the IP that I wanted
in the right pulldown. For some hosts this worked for
others it did not, however this still means 2 network
configurations per host and does not work reliably.

It seems that the gateway has a NAT address which is
completely different from your static network. This
is the "DMZ plus mode" address. You have to turn
off the firewall in the "EDIT ADDRESS ALLOCATION"
page, otherwise the router will do port forwarding
from this NAT address to that computer. Very
frustrating as once the computer is set to this
its MAC is locked into this address and I
found no way to diassociate it except resetting
to factory defaults. Tech support told me that
this would disable the firewall, but it is
not correct.

Wireless -> DHCP/NAT -> DMZ Plus Mode Address
192.168.1.0/24 76.255.3.XXX
Ethernet -> DHCP -> Internet
99.34.XXX.XXX Cloud

So you can see that the NAT address is not
even close to the subnet I am on. This must
be a headache to setup on the ISP side.

The wireless computers still get DHCP/NAT with
the default DHCP being set to the public
subnet. This is counterintuitive as well. Only
the host connected to the ethernet ports can
have static IPs (well almost static). The
wireless still get 192.168.1.0/24 addresses
unless you changed the default settings.

I have used many ISP's and I have configured
linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Solaris host as
bastion FW/Routers and found no reason
for the router to know about each host,
it simply needed to know what networks to
route for and that was it. This is assinine
and why someone would think this is a
"desirable feature" is beyond me. If all I
did was DHCP/NAT to web surf, it would be
great, but why AT&T or any ISP would give
this to a business client with static IP's
is beyond me and rather stupid. It makes
me want to spend money to replace it
with my own equipment just to avoid the
headache.

Also a bug in the software is that it
shows hosts that are no longer physically
connected as still active. Once you
connect a computer it stores the MAC
somewhere in a permanent ARP table and
it never goes away. So if you change
network cards, you will have to go
through this process again and have
2 versions of the same host appearing
in the "Home Network -> Summary" page.
Very annoying and potentially error
producing as this old remnant has the
IP allocated to it. So by doing it
this way a host reconfiguration
necessitates a router reconfiguration.

I wasted the last week configuring
something that should have just been
plugged in, given its network
information, and worked.
.

Loading