Configuring firewall in Telkom "Marconi" router

[jcheek]

Does anyone out there have a reasonable set of guidelines for configuring the hardware firewall of Telkom's "Marconi" ADSL modem/router ?

I use the modem's built-in DHCP server and PPPoE mode to provide multiple connections to several XP PC's on a home network. This eliminates the need to run ICS on a "main" XP machine. Mostly, this is working fine, but it means that the "front-end" of the network - where the firewall needs to be - moves from the main machine to the modem.

The firewall on the Marconi is very configurable, but there is absolutely no default template :-(. The manual provides some (artificial) example setups, but I'm wondering if someone's got something better. Doesn't seem to be much help out there on the web.

Yeah, I know the Marconi's not the greatest firewall (eg not "stateful"), but it IS a first line of defence.

Anyone else been there and done this ? Or did you all go out and buy Netgears with preconfigured firewalls ?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[MFour]

Maybe the "not so clued up" way, but i think it worked for me.

I just enabled all the posibilities, and then tried my various aps. Whenever I ran into "non-conectivity", I would go back and unselect the relevant option. Then went to www.grc.com and and used the Shields Up! facility to test. Seems to work (I hope) so far.

 

[bb_matt]

Does anyone out there have a reasonable set of guidelines for configuring the hardware firewall of Telkom's "Marconi" ADSL modem/router ?

I use the modem's built-in DHCP server and PPPoE mode to provide multiple connections to several XP PC's on a home network. This eliminates the need to run ICS on a "main" XP machine. Mostly, this is working fine, but it means that the "front-end" of the network - where the firewall needs to be - moves from the main machine to the modem.

The firewall on the Marconi is very configurable, but there is absolutely no default template :-(. The manual provides some (artificial) example setups, but I'm wondering if someone's got something better. Doesn't seem to be much help out there on the web.

Yeah, I know the Marconi's not the greatest firewall (eg not "stateful"), but it IS a first line of defence.

Anyone else been there and done this ? Or did you all go out and buy Netgears with preconfigured firewalls ?

Thanks in advance for any help.

There's a marconi at work - I'll have a look at it if I get time today.

By default, they are usually configured to block the majority of malicious traffic, the important thing to check is if you can get onto the router via it's external IP address - if you can access it via port 23, you better block that port pronto !

Via port 80 isn't a train smash, but if there's no need to access the router externally and you don't have a web server behind the router you want to NAT port 80 to, close it off as well.

My planet router at home I just bunged into bridge mode and hooked it up to a PC running IPCop, as I couldn't get the damn thing to connect + there wasn't enough decent options, like dyndyns etc.

 

[MFour]

By default, they are usually configured to block the majority of malicious traffic, the important thing to check is if you can get onto the router via it's external IP address - if you can access it via port 23, you better block that port pronto !

Via port 80 isn't a train smash, but if there's no need to access the router externally and you don't have a web server behind the router you want to NAT port 80 to, close it off as well.

He? Please please let us(me) know the how, what and how deep of it. Not sure that I found any such options.

 

[jcheek]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I guess we need to be specific here - there are quite a few different versions of the Telkom Marconi box out there. Perhaps the latest one(s) ship with the firewall pre-configured, but mine certainly didn't. (I believe the latest is the V4 modem - an upright black box ?)

I have the V3 modem (the white box marked "ADSL Router Broadband". By default, the firewall on that unit is disabled, and even if you enable it, there are no pre-configured firewall policies defined.

bb_matt - you're right, one can do it by trial and error. I made a few partially-successful attempts which involved about 10 entries in the policy table, but life is too short for that, plus the chance of missing something is quite high.

Was hoping someone out there could post an image of a working Marconi firewall config page or something.

At the moment I just run ZoneAlarm on all the client PC's, but it's (yet another) little thing to run in the background and eat system resources.

Cheers

 

[FrankTheRat]

I'm also using PPPoE instead of bridging. I've configured my Marconi router firewall with all options set (ie blocked) except for DNS & DHCP. GRC reports that it's fine apart from the modem responding to pings. Don't know how to stop this without effectively disabling the modem/router.