Superhub : Real advantage(s) of 'Modem Only' mode?

[sam-vm]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The reason for my suggestion to turn off Wireless & Firewall in the SH is to assure stability of the device. The less you give the SH to do, the more reliable it is.

Of course there are advantages to keeping wireless on; for example 2.4 GHz in one router, 5 GHz in the other. If the SH remains stable and doesn't tend to reset or reboot itself, then fine and you're among the lucky. Worth a try, perhaps.

As regards the firewall in the SH, my own view is that the thing simply doesn't have the legs for all its functions. However, if wireless is off, then firewall isn't competing for as much. Yiu may well have devices attached that the firewall must protect; I don't and I have firewall turned on in my PCs.

Hope that helps as well.

Thanks again for the info... all good stuff.

Given all the stuff I'd read in the forums about the problems people were having with the Wi-Fi in the SH, I'd already decided that the TP-Link router's Wi-Fi would be the best option and it does run simultaneous on both bands (if you want).

On Saturday when I was first connected to VM, I just connected the SH to the TP-Link (with the Lan cable) and turned off Wi-Fi in the SH.

Next option I tried, again because of the advice from the forum, was to switch the SH to 'modem only' mode and although this configuration works fine, I then lost the other Lan ports on the SH that I wanted to use to connect the Sky box and Blu-Ray.

After switching modem only mode off in SH I was back to my original configuration and it was at this point that I started to wonder what advantages there were to using the SH in modem only mode, given that in my setup, things seemed to be working fine either way

So far, I've not lost connection from the SH or had any other hiccups so maybe I've just been lucky in that regard; with all the configurations for my own personal setup having worked ok (had many a frustrating hour/day/week in the past trying various configurations so I know what it's like when no matter what you try, things don't play ball!).

I think I'll quit with the experiments for the moment... don't want to push my luck seeing as so far, fingers crossed, my whole setup is working fine

---------- Post added at 14:17 ---------- Previous post was at 14:14 ----------

Originally Posted by Eeeps

That's the way I'd do it or perhaps using the DHCP in the TP-Link with it switched off in the SH.

One point to note about this is to ensure you set up a static address in the device that has DHCP switched off. This should be within your local subnet but outside the DHCP range.

If you don't do that then you won't be able to access the management web interface pages.

All noted about setting a static IP for the device if you switch off it's DHCP... I've been in that boat in the past and usually had to resort to doing a 'back to factory defaults' on the device to get into the menu system again

Cheers

[tweetiepooh]

Well if you do leave both firewalls on then you have created your own DMZ type setup in the 192.168.0.0/24 network and you internal network on 192.168.1.0/24.

In theory there should be no problem with internal network stuff seeing both the DMZ where you have your BluRay and other AV kit and the outside world. Stuff in the DMZ shouldn't see the internal network unless you want them to. You could use the wireless on the SH as a sort of guest network where it can see the wide world and your AV network but not your internal equipment.

Where the "fun" would begin is if you wanted to open a service on the internal network to the outside world as you would need to chain the ports but it should still work.

Internal network (192.168.1.0/24) PC's etc

TP-Link router/firewall

DMZ network (192.168.0.0/24), AV equipment, "guest" wireless

SuperHub

Interwebby

[sam-vm]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Well if you do leave both firewalls on then you have created your own DMZ type setup in the 192.168.0.0/24 network and you internal network on 192.168.1.0/24.

In theory there should be no problem with internal network stuff seeing both the DMZ where you have your BluRay and other AV kit and the outside world. Stuff in the DMZ shouldn't see the internal network unless you want them to. You could use the wireless on the SH as a sort of guest network where it can see the wide world and your AV network but not your internal equipment.

Where the "fun" would begin is if you wanted to open a service on the internal network to the outside world as you would need to chain the ports but it should still work.

Internal network (192.168.1.0/24) PC's etc


TP-Link router/firewall

DMZ network (192.168.0.0/24), AV equipment, "guest" wireless

SuperHub

Interwebby

Hi ... thanks for the reply and info

Yes, I think (accidently ) the combination of the SH connected to my Sky HD box and Blu-Ray using the 192.168.0.x range of addresses and the the SH connected to the TP-Link router, dishing out addresses in the 192.168.1.x range has worked out quite well.

So far, I'm not seeing any issues or conflicts and it's like the two sides of the network are co-existing very well

Other than turn off the Wi-Fil in the SH, about the only thing I've had to do manually is to set the DNS servers (Google's) from the default ones in Virgin Media's SH (I just prefer to use Google's servers ) which was easy enough to do in the TP-Link router.

While it's working ok like this, I see no need to change things but I'll keep in mind of course that services like Skype etc. may well need a bit of a rethink.

Thanks again