[wplug] Port Forwarding in Verizon Router

[Ted Rodgers]

*>** > I haven't been able to follow what is going on.  When I click on the
>** host in
>** > the Verizon router control interface (192.168.1.1) and click on "Resolve
>** > Now", it searches and comes up with these weird IP addresses.  They are
>** > located in California and I guess are part of the Verizon service.  But
>** they
>** > appear to be making it impossible for me to get remote access to the iMac
>** > and Ubuntu machine from outside my network.  I can't find a way to change
>** > the DNS servers.  One suggestion was to use non-Verizon DNS servers.

*If you are getting IP's outside of your local network when resolving
hosts from
within your router, I'm taking a guess that it is searching within whatever the
default search domain is, as assigned by Verizon, and either finding a
hostname that
matches or hitting a catchall address.  If you're running any local
DNS service, try
that as a static primary DNS server in the router and allow that to
fallback to Verizon
or elsewhere when needed --assuming here that it allows you to do that
if you are using
DHCP for your WAN address.  Or you could try removing any default
search domains it is
acquiring.

My experience with Verizon networking devices is that they often have
very poorly
designed user interfaces and often behave oddly.  Options that should
change their
behavior often have odd names and do other things than expected.
Simple port forwarding
shouldn't be hard, at one place I ended up having to both set a
(router) host as a DMZ
address and then forward every TCP port to it as well.  The "normal"
way, simply setting
up a couple forwarded ports somehow "did not compute" to the device,
which incidentally
was also a Westel.

I agree with the idea of cutting the functionality out of the Verizon
device. It should
be possible to flip it into bridged mode (meaning it becomes just a
switch) and use a
router flashed with DD-WRT/open-wrt for doing any kind or routing for
you.  This could
be tricky if you have multiple routebale IPs assigned from Verizon,
though, unless they
are static.

A word of caution about setting the router as a bridge:
At at least one place I removed the extra cruft from a FIOS setup when
the place got
additional IPs assigned and we wanted a better way to do things.  The
process involved
calling Verizon and being transferred through their endless loops to
get their FIOS
box to ever be happy with our changes, and it was well outside what
the first couple tiers
of their phone techs were able to get the device to release.


That said, directions for configuring it as a pass through bridge are here:
http://www22.verizon.com/residentialhelp/highspeed/networking/setup/questionsthree/123756.htm


Alternatively, you could ask if they would exchange it
for an Actiontec.  Their interface is a bit clunky too, but they work
pretty well.  As
a bonus, the last I knew, the Actiontec FIOS routers were Linux based
and you can use
"normal" iptables rules via either ssh or the GUI if you feel like digging in.
*
*>* > I installed Aegir on the ubuntu machine and perhaps some of
the*>* > configuration associated with Aegir has fed over to the
Verizon router.
*
Simply, no.



***
Ted

*