Ralph Blach wrote:
Aaron,
Is there anyway to turn off the Nat translation in the westell modem and simply make it a passthru bridge?
Right now I have two nat translators, my Westell modem and my linksys router. I would really like my
my Westell modem to just pass though.
Chip
This depends a lot on which Westel modem you have, and I am not intimately familiar with most of them. In general, something along Robert's suggestion is probably correct, there may be a setting, which may be obscurely named, which disables NAT in some fashion. Usually by turning the modem from a NAT Router into a DSL bridge. The tricky part about that is that your modem is likely speaking PPPoE or better yet PPPoA on the outside interface (over the DSL line). This means that in order to terminate the PPP connection, it has to have the IP address on the outside interface. If you disable the routing functions, and turn it into a bridge, you will need to configure your router to do PPPoE (less efficient than PPPoA = slightly less bandwidth, due to bigger packets). Making wholesale changes such as this to your internet connection is best done with care, as it's hard to google for the answer when your DSL modem is borked. You may also wish to consult with tech support for your ISP, who may or may not be willing to walk you through the change.
Some newer modems, such as the Zoom that Intrex carried last time I looked and others, support something called "half bridging". This essentially terminates the PPP connection on the router, with PPPoA and then sets up DHCP to provide only one IP address with a small netmask. It then accepts all traffic as if it were your default gateway and passes it on unmodified, and accepts all incoming traffic on the external IP address and passes it on to your machine (in this case your router) unmodified. It's a neat little networking trick that solves the problem very nicely, but unless that's a relatively new Westel, it may not support this feature.
All in all, best of luck with your configuration. If you require more assistance with it your ISP is a better source than I am, but if they're no help I'll see what I can do. We should probably take further DSL-modem-specific questions off the list.
Aaron S. Joyner -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
