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Netopia R910 and WINS

We have two Netopia R910 routers, one at our main office and one at a remote location on another ISP. We have a VPN between the two routers which works great for file sharing and email (Exchange.) However, I can't see the remote machines to do things like remotely install Symantec. I believe that having them register with a WINS server here at the main office would help things like that immensely.

I read Mike Drechsler's post here:

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in which he says to make some changes to the netbios settings. Specifically, my question is regarding this section here where he says "You turn Serve NetBIOS scope to NO and you can turn on 'Serve NetBIOS type' to yes and 'NetBIOS type' Type H. After you are done in these screen go back out and turn off 'Serve DHCP Clients' if you don't want the Netopia to act as the DHCP server for the whole network."

We need the Netopia router to serve as the DHCP server for the remote location. Our Windows 2003 SBS server is acting as the DHCP server for our main office. How do we set up the Netopia routers to forward Netbios traffic over the WAN, but ONLY serve IPs for the one location? Thanks John

Reply to
John Aldrich
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Hey my old posts live on.

I believe that I know why you may be confused about my comment about turning off serve dhcp clients. It's because the original poster was asking specifically about clients "dialing in" through PPTP connections. I was explaining how to setup the router to give an address to the PPTP user but to allow the existing DHCP server on their network to keep supplying addresses to the LAN without the Netopia responding to those LAN requests and conflicting with the existing DHCP server.

If the Netopia is the DHCP server for that local lan in your case then yes, leave serve dhcp clients turned on. Also network browsing takes time to build the local browse lists, you may need to let the network settle after changing things for almost 2 hours before those browse lists have been built. I don't know any way to improve that.

Oh, one other tip. The R910 is now a very old product. If you have more than a 256K ADSL then you will improve encryption performace if you upgrade those units to a current 3386-ENT or 3387WG-ENT model. The

3387WG-ENT has wireless but also a bit faster processor than the 3386 (unless they have upgraded that since the last one I bought without changing model numbers). They still don't offer "enterprise" level performance but for the price it's a great deal. About 1.5Mbit of real world 3des encryption speed on the 3387wg-ent which isn't very high compared to something with some dedicated encryption boosting chipsets (30-50Mbit claimed) but as long as it's keeping up with my internet connection I can live with it. I have 10down/1up Mbit connection so it's not slowing me down.
Reply to
Mike Drechsler - SPAM PROTECTE

Mike Drechsler - SPAM PROTECTED EMAIL wrote: [snip]

Hmm... I don't suppose we could just upgrade the firmware??? :-) I seriously doubt that the company is going to be willing to sink money into two new routers. Thanks for the info, though. I wish we could have a 10/1 connection, but alas, BellSouth doesn't offer that. :-(

Reply to
John Aldrich

The R910 is slow because it has a slow processor (33Mhz). No firmware upgrade could help this.

The 3387WG-ENT is not expensive:

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Reply to
Mike Drechsler - SPAM PROTECTE

According to Netopia support, this information is quite out of date. These days, the R910 uses the same processor and firmware as the 338x-ENT series. I tend to use them interchangeably, but prefer the R910 for its better cooling and the serial port that can be used for configuration and troubleshooting.

If I have a remote site, I will sometimes configure an old external modem connected to the R910's serial port and the local fax line. I'll leave the modem turned off. Then, if the network link goes down, I can have them turn off the fax, turn on the modem, I use Hyperterm to dial their fax line, and I can talk to the R910's console to troubleshoot.

It'd be nice if Netopia let DHCP Relay Agent function for PPTP, though. Getting remote PCs to see the network the same as local ones in an Active Directory environment should be simpler, and better documented.

Netopia's wireless support could also be better, and it's documentation of what it calls "stateful inspection" is just about non-existent -- as is, I suspect, the actual functionality.

/kenw

Reply to
Ken Wallewein

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