I mentioned in my previous blog entry the fun I was having getting my new Firewall/Router (LinkSys RV016) working properly. My original plan was to set up my web server behind the RV016 and use one to one network address translation (NAT) and firewall rules to manage access.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get this to work. And it started to dawn on me that really, it *couldn’t* work with the way Telus assigns IP addresses to devices. Telus’s home and Business ADSL services use a tool whereby you identify the MAC (physical layer) address of your device, and Telus uses that to provide an IP address to that device via DHCP. Since the RV016 has a single MAC address, Telus can’t assign it two IP addresses and allow the RV016 to route appropriately: in essence, Telus is assuming you are either directly connected to their network, or behind a simple one to many NAT device.
I got this confirmed by Telus technical support today. Now, I’m not saying I trust the technical response since they really didn’t confirm that my understanding of why it wasn’t working was correct. They just indicated that I *was* correct in assuming that there was no way with their standard service to allow one MAC address to service multiple IP addresses. According to them, I’d need to upgrade to managed ADSL to get this capability.
I have a call in with Telus now, but my recollection of Telus’ managed ADSL service suggests that I’d likely be looking at about $500 a month to get it. That won’t fly for me- that’s insanely expensive. I won’t find out until the new year when Telus will hopefully call me back.
Technorati Tags: Linksys [1], One to One NAT [2], Telus [3]