ADSL Gateway

Background
The Hard Way
The Easy Way

Background

With broadband connections taking homes and small offices by storm, not many people realise that as much as the user has faster connection to the Internet, the whole Internet community has equally fast connection back to the user’s computer.

On average, a class C network connected to the Internet via ADSL is scanned for open ports every 2 minutes. That means in the most optimistic scenario a computer connected via broadband will be probed at least every 8 hours. In the worst-case scenario, someone may have accessed files on your computer a few minutes ago, and there is a good chance that they are still doing it now…

Even if you are using a 56K modem you can be a victim of such attack. However your chances are 8 times less compared to the 256/64 ADSL connection. So, if you are thinking about broadband, think firewall as well, please. It is a must.

 Another problem faced by many new ADSL users is PPPoE protocol application or should I say, its configuration. For the good stuff, which works and is relatively easy to configure you will have to pay a couple of hundred Australian dollars. The free of charge ones are often hard to install and configure, or refuse to work at all.

 Another consideration will be the ease of sharing your Internet connection with your other home computer(s). Naturally, we will have to protect them against Internet attacks as well.

The Hard Way

A firewall is an absolute “must” these days. The cheapest option will be a software, personal firewall solution offered by many vendors. But is it the easiest solution? Definitely not. You need some computer knowledge to know which packet should be allowed and which should be blocked. You have to be prepared to answer strange questions like:
“ Do you allow application XYZ.dll to connect to 111.222.111.222 on port 65123? – Allow always? Allow once only? Etc”
That can be even more confusing if you are sharing your Internet connection.

 Typically, the kids’ computer is the desktop computer at home and Mum and Dad will connect their notebooks to the small home network to use the kids’ printer or scanner, sometimes exchanging documents or connecting to the Internet via the modem on the desktop machine.
Technically, they can replace the 56K modem card with the ADSL modem card and… this is usually where the problems start. The computer now crashes 3 times per day with some messages about … (put your PPPoE software name here). Dad’s favourite game (V8 Supercars? Half-Life? Counter-Strike?) doesn’t work anymore. Mum’s Chat program refuses to connect to the server. No one is really interested in the kids’ problems. Especially after half of the C drive data miraculously disappears. Disaster.

 Assuming you are relatively familiar with TCP/IP traffic, you may buy an external DSL modem for approx. $440.00*, a personal firewall for $100.00* and another $100.00* for a good PPPoE application. Plus some $20.00* - $30.00* for an additional network card for your desktop. Windows XP users are in a slightly better situation as the operating system natively support PPPoE and can firewall the connection.

So, for around  $650.00* you can connect your computer to the Internet via ADSL. But what if you are not a computer expert? Please add an extra $xxx dollars for your frustration and mobile phone charges to your friend, the computer expert. (I don’t know why but the computer experts are easier to reach on their mobile phones then land lines, strange).

The Easy Way

So far, we may have painted the ADSL picture in such dark colours that a few people may be postponing the decision to connect to the ADSL service. That however, was not our intention. We are simply trying to promote an awareness of just some of the security implications of Broadband services and the currently available solutions.

If you don’t have a knowledgeable, experienced, in-expensive and available friend to help you with your ADSL security, you may want to consider the Terra Electronics’ ADSL-Gateway.

Our solution is based on an “all-in-one-box” concept designed for “plug in & turn on” installation. The gateway box simply drops into your home network or next to your standalone computer. In its basic form it has only 3 sockets: the power socket, the telephone socket, for the ADSL connection, and the network card socket, for connectivity with your home or small office computer or network.

After connecting the cables and powering the ADSL-Gateway you will have to configure your username and password for PPPoE using a simple WEB based interface and the system is ready to use (the username and password will be supplied by your Internet provider). 

You don’t need to configure anything else. The default values are set to block anything coming from outside in and open for anything going from inside out.
Also, if you have more than one computer, a built-in DHCP server will assign a network address for any computer running in your home or small office network. The automatically configured IP Masquerading (also called NAT) allows Internet connection sharing seamlessly to the users of the local network.

Built-in Proxy server allows you to save money on your Internet surfing as well as allows you to locally cache regularly visited web sites and even track the sites you or your kids have visited.

Why ADSL-Gateway?

In summary, the ADSL-Gateway has built-in firewall, proxy server, DHCP server, 10/100 Fast Ethernet and ADSL interface. A built-in Web server allows for basic and advanced configuration of the ADSL-Gateway as well as for access to the proxy server reports list.

When you compare a hassle-free solution like the ADSL-Gateway with the previously mentioned alternative, you will probably agree, that for a couple of hundred dollars more, our solution is cheaper to run in the longer term. (Especially if you calculate the cost of the painkiller tablets for your headache and the mobile phone charges to your friend). 

Besides the frustration, the built-in Proxy server will save you a few dollars on your Internet bill. Not to mention the cost of the recovering of your hard drive after an unfortunate successful attack on your computer connected to the Net directly.

It is much harder to “jump over” a dedicated hardware firewall than “work on” an actual computer directly connected.

Investment

In its basic version, fitted into a standard midi tower-case, ADSL-Gateway costs $900.00*. Smaller footprint cases are also available for an extra charge.

Technical things

The ADSL-Gateway is capable of working with static or dynamic IP addresses on the ADSL connection. The configuration of this parameter is available via the advanced options interface.

The advanced options also allow users to open or forward ports used for WWW, FTP, SMTP, POP3 or other services if there is a requirement to run a publicly accessible server behind the firewall.
Also, users may block access to some web sites or network addresses for some parental reasons.

The ADSL-Gateway hardware is based on 1.7 GHz Celeron processor and 128 MB RAM. The system is based on Linux Mandrake 8.0 and gShield firewall software. 

Please note: The Linux and gShield software is preloaded and supply free of charge.  

For more details please contact info@terrael.com.au.

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* All prices are in Australian dollars and GST inclusive. Delivery costs may apply in some cases.