SW Exp. 2.0 will not reconnect without rebooting.

Andy J. · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 62

I have a Smoothwall Express 2.0 (fixes Cool

machine in my
loft which has been performing faultlessly for 18 months
now. The only annoyance I have with it is the issue of
reconnecting after the connection to my ISP has dropped.

It's connected to the 'net via an Alcatel Speedtouch 330
USB modem. Whenever the connection drops it will not
simply reconnect. The 'persistent connection' tries for
5mins and then reboots the machine or if I try manually
via the HTML interface I also have to reboot (disconnect
and reconnect have no effect). It does of course reconnect
after the reboot.

While the connection is down the 'Control' page shows
"ADSL Idle".

Is this normal behaviour or is there something I can do to
correct it?

Andy J.

Desk Rabbit · External Since: Aug 23, 2006 Posts: 4

Andy J. wrote:
> I have a Smoothwall Express 2.0 (fixes Cool

machine in my
> loft which has been performing faultlessly for 18 months
> now. The only annoyance I have with it is the issue of
> reconnecting after the connection to my ISP has dropped.
>
> It's connected to the 'net via an Alcatel Speedtouch 330
> USB modem. Whenever the connection drops it will not
> simply reconnect. The 'persistent connection' tries for
> 5mins and then reboots the machine or if I try manually
> via the HTML interface I also have to reboot (disconnect
> and reconnect have no effect). It does of course reconnect
> after the reboot.
>
> While the connection is down the 'Control' page shows
> "ADSL Idle".
>
> Is this normal behaviour or is there something I can do to
> correct it?

Yup, remove the poxy modem, fit a second NIC and install a router on the
red interface. Even better, just get the router to replace Smoothwall -
much simpler and inherently more reliable.

Andy J. · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 62

Desk Rabbit wrote:
> Andy J. wrote:
>> I have a Smoothwall Express 2.0 (fixes Cool

machine in my
>> loft which has been performing faultlessly for 18 months
>> now. The only annoyance I have with it is the issue of
>> reconnecting after the connection to my ISP has dropped.
>>
>> It's connected to the 'net via an Alcatel Speedtouch 330
>> USB modem. Whenever the connection drops it will not
>> simply reconnect. The 'persistent connection' tries for
>> 5mins and then reboots the machine or if I try manually
>> via the HTML interface I also have to reboot (disconnect
>> and reconnect have no effect). It does of course reconnect
>> after the reboot.
>>
>> While the connection is down the 'Control' page shows
>> "ADSL Idle".
>>
>> Is this normal behaviour or is there something I can do to
>> correct it?
>
> Yup, remove the poxy modem, fit a second NIC and install a router on the
> red interface. Even better, just get the router to replace Smoothwall -
> much simpler and inherently more reliable.

I binned a router in favour of the Smoothwall machine. In fact the
router proved to be far less reliable than the Smoothwall, and I need
the DMZ and logging provided by Smoothwall anyway. May I ask why
someone obviously so anti-Smoothwall is posting on a Smoothwall
newsgroup?

Andy J.

Desk Rabbit · External Since: Aug 23, 2006 Posts: 4

Andy J. wrote:
> Desk Rabbit wrote:
>
>> Andy J. wrote:
>>
>>> I have a Smoothwall Express 2.0 (fixes Cool

machine in my
>>> loft which has been performing faultlessly for 18 months
>>> now. The only annoyance I have with it is the issue of
>>> reconnecting after the connection to my ISP has dropped.
>>>
>>> It's connected to the 'net via an Alcatel Speedtouch 330
>>> USB modem. Whenever the connection drops it will not
>>> simply reconnect. The 'persistent connection' tries for
>>> 5mins and then reboots the machine or if I try manually
>>> via the HTML interface I also have to reboot (disconnect
>>> and reconnect have no effect). It does of course reconnect
>>> after the reboot.
>>>
>>> While the connection is down the 'Control' page shows
>>> "ADSL Idle".
>>>
>>> Is this normal behaviour or is there something I can do to
>>> correct it?
>>
>>
>> Yup, remove the poxy modem, fit a second NIC and install a router on
>> the red interface. Even better, just get the router to replace
>> Smoothwall - much simpler and inherently more reliable.
>
>
>
> I binned a router in favour of the Smoothwall machine. In fact the
> router proved to be far less reliable than the Smoothwall, and I need
> the DMZ and logging provided by Smoothwall anyway. May I ask why
> someone obviously so anti-Smoothwall is posting on a Smoothwall
> newsgroup?
>
> Andy J.

What makes you think I'm anti-Smoothwall? I used to actively promote and
sell it, then I moved on to IPCOP. It was great in its time but hardware
firewall prices have dropped and I now use mostly Zyxel firewalls and
routers. They are considerably more reliable with no moving parts, fans,
hard drives etc - I've moved on. For example: Zyxel 662H has DMZ,
logging (Sent via mail or syslog), 20 VPN tunnels, DynDNS support, Dial
backup route, Bandwidth management, SPI firewall with time of day
sensitive rules, keyword blocking & Content Acces Control, Anti virus
for HTTP/POP3/SMTP/FTP, 4 port 10/100 switch etc, etc, etc.

Smoothwall is not even rated by the original creator it seems:-
http://blog.dickmorrell.org/?p=187