Netgear Router Problem?

[treeman]

i hope someone can help me as i have just set up my free netgear wireless router from virgin media.

it is up and running fine but when i go to the shieldsup website at grc.com to check the security for this router it comes back with the following info:

Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) � Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.

this was previusly always closed when i had just my virgin cable modem and was not a problem and was passed but now it has failed this test.

i am a total newbee to wireless routers and this is the first i have and i have set up the password and username fine and the security is showing green.

once again thansk for any help and advice anyone cam give me in layman terms please!!

[MovedGoalPosts]

You should have access to the admin pages of the router. Somewhere in there should be a setting to turn off the ping responder.

[treeman]

anks for your relpy rob which is great!

what is a wan and how do i find the set up page as i have found the virgin media setup section but there is no option to change any of the setting i need for the ping?? please excuse my stupiditey rob!!

[looselipsuk]

Try this. http://192.168.1.1/start.htm with default name and password. You will find this on the label on the back of the router.
Once on that page select WAS Setup on the left hand side. In the middle box you can untick the Respond to Ping on Internet Port.
Hope this helps as I had to find out the hard way after getting my router as part of the trial.
If you need any more info just ask.

[treeman]

nice one looslipsuk for the info i was after i have now managed to sort it out and is now working great!!

many thanks!!

[looselipsuk]

My pleasure and glad to help.

[umairooq01]

Originally Posted by looselipsuk

Try this. http://192.168.1.1/start.htm with default name and password. You will find this on the label on the back of the router.
Once on that page select WAS Setup on the left hand side. In the middle box you can untick the Respond to Ping on Internet Port.
Hope this helps as I had to find out the hard way after getting my router as part of the trial.
If you need any more info just ask.

hi, i have just read ur info regarding netgear router problem.
i have also recived a netgear wireless router from virgin media, and i have conected it to my pc with a wire cause my pc is not wireless enables. anyways i have wlan on my mobile which when i search for it the wlan shows the other wlan netwarks around my flat but my one does not show on it.
sometimes since i have got my wireless router it came on few times by itself and i was able to brouse the net on my mobile using the netgear that i have. but now it went all missing again. could you please help me to sort this out.
thanks.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by umairooq01

hi, i have just read ur info regarding netgear router problem.
i have also recived a netgear wireless router from virgin media, and i have conected it to my pc with a wire cause my pc is not wireless enables. anyways i have wlan on my mobile which when i search for it the wlan shows the other wlan netwarks around my flat but my one does not show on it.
sometimes since i have got my wireless router it came on few times by itself and i was able to brouse the net on my mobile using the netgear that i have. but now it went all missing again. could you please help me to sort this out.
thanks.

Click here if a white Netgear router and ignore the mention of belkin on the first line.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34864636-post15.html

[umairooq01]

Originally Posted by Moldova

Click here if a white Netgear router and ignore the mention of belkin on the first line.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34864636-post15.html

hi,
thanks for your help.
anyways thats not my problem i have installed my netgear router properly and its working fine with my pc cause i have conected the router with a wire to my pc. but when i want to conect my mobile phone with a wlan the netgear router i have is not showing while the mobile wlan searches for it. i have netgear wireless router in white colour.
please help how can i make it work wirelessley.thanks

you might need to change the default broadcast channel in wireless setup or try it without security and see if it connects then. If it does try enabling it again on a dfferent broadcast channel and keep on testing till you get a stable connection

[ezay]

Make sure that your phone supports the version of the wireless e.g 802.11B 802.11G 802.11N.

[umairooq01]

Originally Posted by ezay

Make sure that your phone supports the version of the wireless e.g 802.11B 802.11G 802.11N.

thanks for ur quick reply i am going to try this now and see what happens

---------- Post added at 18:30 ---------- Previous post was at 18:27 ----------

hi again thanks alot for ur help it was really helpfull.
i have just changed the channel from 6 to 1 and it started to show up when i search for the netgear on my mobile using wlan. great. thanks alot.

[mrmistoffelees]

I've said this before and i'll say it again, Blocking ICMP on the WAN port is a bad move.
All this is doing is showing that there is a device connected on that IP address. nothing more nothing less. Blocking ICMP causes more issues than it solves

Originally Posted by Robin Walkers cable modem pages

Stealth-mode firewalls considered harmful
Some firewalls have a hiding mechanism they call stealth. For instance, the High Security setting in ZoneAlarm is an example of stealth mode. In stealth mode, the firewall causes the PC just to ignore incoming connection attempts, rather than rejecting them, as would be normal for incoming connection attempts to closed ports. The result is that the PC appears to be switched off and absent from the network.

This hyper-paranoid approach to security causes some difficulties. For a start, Internet standard RFC 1122 states categorically about ICMP Echoes (ping):

3.2.2.6 Echo Request/Reply: RFC-792

Every host MUST implement an ICMP Echo server function that receives Echo Requests and sends corresponding Echo Replies.

Note the MUST rather than SHOULD. This means that any internet user, or ISP server, has a right to expect that all live PCs connected to the internet will respond to ICMP ping requests with an ICMP reply. If a firewall user chooses to stealth ICMP requests so that no response is sent, they have only themselves to blame if they start experiencing problems, because they are in breach of RFC 1122.

The problems that might arise if you kill ICMP responses with stealth are:

Difficulties with DHCP lease acquisition or renewal in cases where the DHCP server checks on the availability of IP addresses, or your presence on the network, with ICMP ping requests [this doesn't actually happen on the original NTL network, but ICMP requests have been seen coming from the DHCP servers of digital TV set-top boxes. No problems seen with blueyonder];

Slowness of web connection setup in cases where the remote web server uses ICMP to determine the MTU of the response path;
Frustration at ISP help-desks (and with informal helpers) if your PC does not respond to pings and traceroutes, as it is difficult to distinguish this situation from a broken connection.

So you are strongly advised not to apply stealth techniques to the ICMP protocol. In the freeware version of ZoneAlarm, this means you should run it in Medium Security, not High Security, for the Internet Zone. In ZoneAlarm Pro, you can configure ICMP behaviour to permit ICMP Echo packets in and out even in High Security, using the Customize button of the Security Settings panel.

Originally Posted by umairooq01

thanks for ur quick reply i am going to try this now and see what happens

---------- Post added at 18:30 ---------- Previous post was at 18:27 ----------

hi again thanks alot for ur help it was really helpfull.
i have just changed the channel from 6 to 1 and it started to show up when i search for the netgear on my mobile using wlan. great. thanks alot.

glad to have been of help