Question about LANWAN Ethernet connector (DSL modem)
Mark Conrad
I know nothing about DSL modems.
Already tried googling for "purpose of LANWAN connection,
but all I get are tech specs, nothing a newbie can understand
about what that "Local Area Network Wide Area Network"
connector is actually used for.
I have 5 Ethernet jacks labelled 1 2 3 4 LANWAN
Does not seem to matter whether I connect the ethernet cable
from my Mac to one of the four numbered connections, or to
the only other one labelled "LANWAN".
Is there a special purpose for the "LANWAN" connection?
Be gentle, connection issues are difficult for me to understand.
Mark-
David Empson
> I know nothing about DSL modems.
>
> Already tried googling for "purpose of LANWAN connection,
> but all I get are tech specs, nothing a newbie can understand
> about what that "Local Area Network Wide Area Network"
> connector is actually used for.
I can make an educated guess, but it would be much easier if you told us
the brand and model of your DSL modem, so someone who has a better
chance of understanding the technical documentation can read it and
interpret it for you.
> I have 5 Ethernet jacks labelled 1 2 3 4 LANWAN
>
> Does not seem to matter whether I connect the ethernet cable
> from my Mac to one of the four numbered connections, or to
> the only other one labelled "LANWAN".
>
> Is there a special purpose for the "LANWAN" connection?
The name implies that the connector serves two different functions,
probably depending on configuration settings. LAN and WAN are its two
modes of operation. It is probably defaulting to LAN, which is why it
behaves like the numbered ports (all of which are LAN-only).
I expect that if the port is configured to operate in WAN mode, the
modem can operate as an Ethernet to Ethernet router, ignoring its DSL
connection, e.g. for connection to a cable modem.
It _might_ support "dual WAN" operation, where it can use the DSL
connection and the WAN port for an alternative Internet connection.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Bob Harris
Mark Conrad <no-e...@here.invalid> wrote:
Give teh Manufacture and model number of the DSL modem/router
would be useful information.
And David Empson's reply makes a lot of sense.
Have you explored all the DSL modem/router configuration pages
(I'm assuming you configure this puppy via a web browser).
Bob Harris
Kevin McMurtrie
Mark Conrad <no-e...@here.invalid> wrote:
That's probably what other home routers call the DMZ port. It has all
the features of the LAN ports but any remote traffic not recognized by
the router and firewall is passed through. It allows you to run servers
and NAT at the same time as long as everything operates on a different
port number. Only a well-secured computer should be plugged into a DMZ
port.
It's common for DSL modems to have lengthy lists of features that only
operate in special cases, while not telling you what those cases are.
Sometimes the DMZ port has extremely poor LAN performance because it
operates through the internal firewall software. Check discussion boards
if the manual is no help, or buy a modem that has a better manual.
--
Google is a pro-spamming service. I will not see your reply if you use Google.
Mark Conrad
<dem...@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
> I can make an educated guess, but it would be much easier if you told us
> the brand and model of your DSL modem, so someone who has a better
> chance of understanding the technical documentation can read it and
> interpret it for you.
The DSL modem was installed by my rural phone company,
he left no manual for the DSL modem.
Modem is Siemens model "Gigaset SE567".
Phone company tech' did the modem configuration, all I did
was to plug the Ethernet cable into my various Macs, and it
worked right from the start.
No configuration needed by me, it must have used any default
settings already programmed into the Mac. (DHCP ?)
I had _previously_ configured all my Macs for slow dialup,
so apparently the DSL modem had all the ISP info it needed.
Thanks everyone for the clues, guess I better try to download
any users manual that Siemens corp' has for that particular
model DSL modem, so I can figure out how to properly use the
modem Ethernet sockets.
<shudder> Not looking forward to reading that technical info'
For some reason, anything involving networks is difficult
for me to understand.
Mark-
--
BTW, the first Siemens "Gigaset SE567" only lasted a month
before it blew up, this is my second (new) DSL modem,
again installed and configured by my local phone company tech'.
Maybe it blew up because I used the Ethernet sockets in an
indiscriminate manner, sometimes plugging the Mac into
a numbered Ethernet socket, sometimes plugging into the
so-called "LANWAN" socket, dunno.
Mark Conrad
Whoops, forgot to add that the only thing I use the
DSL modem for is to connect to the Internet and Usenet.
I do not have any local network of Macs yet.
Mark-
David Empson
server. Google to the rescue...
Mark Conrad <no-e...@here.invalid> wrote:
> David Empson <dem...@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
> >
> > I can make an educated guess, but it would be much easier if you told us
> > the brand and model of your DSL modem, so someone who has a better
> > chance of understanding the technical documentation can read it and
> > interpret it for you.
>
> The DSL modem was installed by my rural phone company,
> he left no manual for the DSL modem.
> Modem is Siemens model "Gigaset SE567".
OK, found some documentation, what little there is. Here is the
technical information page.
<http://gigaset.com/shc/0,1935,hq_en_0_141461_rarnrnrnrn_variation%253A-
5_pageType%253ATechnical%2Bdata_imagePos%253A0,00.html#content>
In reference to the back panel connectors, it says "1 LAN port can be
used as WAN port".
That's it.
There is also a link to the PDF quick start guide, which has no useful
information at all.
Neither of these provide enough details to be able to determine exactly
what WAN function this port has. I haven't found a full technical
manual.
Without a full manual, the only way I'd be able to work out what it does
is to play with the actual device and look through its configuration
screens with a web browser (assuming I could guess its default username
and password).
My best guess is that Siemens might supply the manual only with the
router (typically on CD). If the router was supplied by your ISP, you
should ask them if they can give you the manual for it.
> Phone company tech' did the modem configuration, all I did
> was to plug the Ethernet cable into my various Macs, and it
> worked right from the start.
> No configuration needed by me, it must have used any default
> settings already programmed into the Mac. (DHCP ?)
Yes. That's normal for most routers.
> I had _previously_ configured all my Macs for slow dialup,
> so apparently the DSL modem had all the ISP info it needed.
A DSL modem typically needs ISP-specific configuration to set up its DSL
connection. In New Zealand this includes selecting the right mode of
operation (PPPoA), some mode parameters (correct values for VPI and
VCI), and entering a client-specific username and password. The details
are likely to vary for other DSL providers. The ISP would do this part
for you if they supplied the router.
Apart from that, its default configuration will work for anyone who
wants a simple "client only" Internet connection.
You typically need to access the router's configuration to enable
advanced features such as opening incoming ports through its firewall to
allow you to run "server" functions on your computer (which might not be
allowed by your ISP's terms and conditions). This particular device is
also a wireless base station, and you would need to be able to configure
that to your specific requirements.
Because of these issues, I'm surprised you didn't get a manual with it.
> Thanks everyone for the clues, guess I better try to download
> any users manual that Siemens corp' has for that particular
> model DSL modem, so I can figure out how to properly use the
> modem Ethernet sockets.
> <shudder> Not looking forward to reading that technical info'
> For some reason, anything involving networks is difficult
> for me to understand.
> Mark-
>
> BTW, the first Siemens "Gigaset SE567" only lasted a month
> before it blew up, this is my second (new) DSL modem,
> again installed and configured by my local phone company tech'.
> Maybe it blew up because I used the Ethernet sockets in an
> indiscriminate manner, sometimes plugging the Mac into
> a numbered Ethernet socket, sometimes plugging into the
> so-called "LANWAN" socket, dunno.
Extremely unlikely that it would "blow up" because of anything plugged
into Ethernet ports. Ethernet ports are electrically isolated, and they
don't care about being connected and disconnected while "live". The
router also wouldn't care about you plugging the Mac into a different
port each time. (It might take a little while to adapt, e.g. because it
remembered which port the computer was connected to previously; this
would only cause a temporary inability to access the Internet.)
It is more likely that the original router was faulty, or something
happened like a power surge or lightning strike which damaged it.
> Whoops, forgot to add that the only thing I use the
> DSL modem for is to connect to the Internet and Usenet.
>
> I do not have any local network of Macs yet.
If you did, you could plug up to four computers into the numbered (LAN =
Local Area Network) ports. It also seems you can use the LAN/WAN port as
a fifth LAN port in the default configuration of the router, but I'd
suggest avoiding that port due to lack of information about its
function.
Kevin McMurtrie's suggestion that it may be a DMZ port is also feasible.
If so, the LAN/WAN port may be on a separate local network from the
numbered ports, and it might bypass the firewall in the router, so it
would be a bad idea to use it unless you had a good reason to do so, and
sufficient understanding of the implications.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Mark Conrad
<dem...@actrix.gen.nz> wrote details concerning DSL modem.
Thanks David for all the details and web links.
The guys who supplied my DSL modem work for
a dinky rural phone company here, they do not
have anything to do with my ISP. (Earthlink)
Rural phone company was using oatmeal boxes
and string for phones here, just a few years ago.
Too mountainous here for satellite service.
Would be nice if glass fiber ever made it here,
no reason not to, except political considerations.
About ten years ago some Canadian outfit laid fiber
just 100 feet from my ranch-house, but local
politics shot them down, they abandoned the project.
Mark-
Gene E. Bloch
> Mark-
At the bottom of this page:
http://kb.efficient.com/display/1n/index.asp?c=&cpc=&cid=&cat=&catURL=&r=8.898562E-02
(Watch for word-wrap or use this: http://tinyurl.com/3lz5cu )
is a link to a larger manual. It may be an improvement over what David
Empson found (but he was very thorough, so maybe not).
--
Gene E. Bloch (Gino) letters617blochg3251
(replace the numbers by "at" and "dotcom")
Gene E. Bloch
>> Mark-
> http://kb.efficient.com/display/1n/index.asp?c=&cpc=&cid=&cat=&catURL=&r=8.898562E-02
I should have checked before posting :-(
My links above don't work as I intended, especially the tinyurl one. Go
to the longer link and enter "Gigaset SE567" in the search box.
Click on "Gigaset Modems and Routers (46106)" in the resulting page,
then click on the third link in the left side to D/L the manual I'm
talking about.
Unfortunately, the manual seems not to be searchable (that is pretty
dumb of Siemens, IMHO), and the pages are numbered in the stupid Ch-Pg
manner, so you can't tell how far you need to go to get to a given
page.
You can see a description of port 5 on page 2-5, which is page 23 of
the file. That's all I looked at so far.
David Empson
> At the bottom of this page:
>
<http://kb.efficient.com/display/1n/index.asp?c=&cpc=&cid=&cat=&catURL=&
r=8.898562E-02>
> (Watch for word-wrap or use this: http://tinyurl.com/3lz5cu )
>
> is a link to a larger manual. It may be an improvement over what David
> Empson found (but he was very thorough, so maybe not).
Thanks for the link. Either Google didn't find it, or I didn't look hard
enough at the results.
Unrelable server - it took me three attempts to download a 3.7 MB file
(doesn't support resuming).
Badly constructed PDF. None of the text appears to be searchable or
copyable, and none of the internal links work (using either Preview or
Adobe Reader). They aren't making this easy.
The manual covers the SE567 and SE568. It describes it as having either
a one port or four port Ethernet switch. The SE568 has USB, and the
SE567 doesn't, but there are conflicting details elsewhere regarding how
many Ethernet ports exist on each model.
The fourth port can be configured as either a LAN port, or as a WAN port
for connection to another broadband device as an alternative to DSL.
There is a picture of the back panel of the SE568 (presumably - it has
USB) on page 23 of the PDF. It has four yellow Ethernet ports labelled
1-4. There is no sign of anything called "LANWAN" or similar.
Given that it has a 4 port Ethernet switch, if Mark's SE567 has five
Ethernet ports, one labelled "LAN/WAN" (seems more likely to have a
slash in the middle, given hints in the manual), then this manual
doesn't match. They might have updated the model since this manual was
printed (2006), and it now has a distinct fifth port for the LAN/WAN
function. Alternatively, the LAN/WAN port might be wired in parallel
with port 4, so they can't be used at the same time.
On page 75 we have this lovely gem.
[begin quote]
Configure the Local SpeedStrem Gateway LAN/WAN port.
Configure Ethernet port #4 as either a LAN (network) port or as a WAN
(Internet connection) port. The default is LAN.
Note: This feature is not described here, since your ISP will provide
the necessary information.
[end quote]
They show you how to get to the menu which will let you enter the screen
to configure the port, but have no information at all about what is on
that screen, so I can't tell any more without seeing the device for
myself.
The most likely explanation is that in WAN mode it is used instead of
the DSL port. If you enabled the WAN function, the DSL port would be
shut down.
Some routers support "dual WAN" functionality, but they tend to be the
more expensive ones, and I'd expect it to be mentioned in the manual and
touted as a feature on the web site. It also requires a fair amount of
configuration to use a feature like this, so it seems unlikely given the
missing documentation for the WAN mode on that port.
Overall this has been a useful exercise. Siemens has bent over backwards
to thwart attempts to find out about this feature. I managed to overcome
several obstacles and I've formed a clear opinion that I will in future
have as little to do with Siemens products as possible.
(Wanders off muttering and shaking head.)
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Gene E. Bloch
> Gene E. Bloch <spam...@nobody.invalid> wrote:
>> At the bottom of this page:
>>
> <http://kb.efficient.com/display/1n/index.asp?c=&cpc=&cid=&cat=&catURL=&
> r=8.898562E-02>
>> (Watch for word-wrap or use this: http://tinyurl.com/3lz5cu )
>>
>> is a link to a larger manual. It may be an improvement over what David
>> Empson found (but he was very thorough, so maybe not).
> Thanks for the link. Either Google didn't find it, or I didn't look hard
> enough at the results.
Well, I wasn't otherwise cooupied at the time :-)
> Unrelable server - it took me three attempts to download a 3.7 MB file
> (doesn't support resuming).
Yes. My tinyurl was crippled by this, and I had to post again to give
Mark Conrad better help than in my first post, becasue even the long
link didn't work as I expected.
> Badly constructed PDF. None of the text appears to be searchable or
> copyable, and none of the internal links work (using either Preview or
> Adobe Reader). They aren't making this easy.
Yes. I remarked on the searchability and also on the page-numbering
scheme in that second post. I didn't notice the link behavior until
later.
> The manual covers the SE567 and SE568. It describes it as having either
> a one port or four port Ethernet switch. The SE568 has USB, and the
> SE567 doesn't, but there are conflicting details elsewhere regarding how
> many Ethernet ports exist on each model.
> The fourth port can be configured as either a LAN port, or as a WAN port
> for connection to another broadband device as an alternative to DSL.
> There is a picture of the back panel of the SE568 (presumably - it has
> USB) on page 23 of the PDF. It has four yellow Ethernet ports labelled
> 1-4. There is no sign of anything called "LANWAN" or similar.
> Given that it has a 4 port Ethernet switch, if Mark's SE567 has five
> Ethernet ports, one labelled "LAN/WAN" (seems more likely to have a
> slash in the middle, given hints in the manual), then this manual
> doesn't match. They might have updated the model since this manual was
> printed (2006), and it now has a distinct fifth port for the LAN/WAN
> function. Alternatively, the LAN/WAN port might be wired in parallel
> with port 4, so they can't be used at the same time.
> On page 75 we have this lovely gem.
> [begin quote]
> Configure the Local SpeedStrem Gateway LAN/WAN port.
> Configure Ethernet port #4 as either a LAN (network) port or as a WAN
> (Internet connection) port. The default is LAN.
> Note: This feature is not described here, since your ISP will provide
> the necessary information.
> [end quote]
Yeah. I just found that a few minutes ago, when I wasted some time in
the PDF. I would have preferred a hint about the intended function...
> They show you how to get to the menu which will let you enter the screen
> to configure the port, but have no information at all about what is on
> that screen, so I can't tell any more without seeing the device for
> myself.
> The most likely explanation is that in WAN mode it is used instead of
> the DSL port. If you enabled the WAN function, the DSL port would be
> shut down.
> Some routers support "dual WAN" functionality, but they tend to be the
> more expensive ones, and I'd expect it to be mentioned in the manual and
> touted as a feature on the web site. It also requires a fair amount of
> configuration to use a feature like this, so it seems unlikely given the
> missing documentation for the WAN mode on that port.
> Overall this has been a useful exercise. Siemens has bent over backwards
> to thwart attempts to find out about this feature. I managed to overcome
> several obstacles and I've formed a clear opinion that I will in future
> have as little to do with Siemens products as possible.
> (Wanders off muttering and shaking head.)
Me too.
It's such a long and detailed manual that one might be forgiven for
thinking that they might actually want to communicate. I no longer have
that opinion.
Mark Conrad
<dem...@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
> Overall this has been a useful exercise. Siemens has bent over backwards
> to thwart attempts to find out about this feature. I managed to overcome
> several obstacles and I've formed a clear opinion that I will in future
> have as little to do with Siemens products as possible.
>
> (Wanders off muttering and shaking head.)
>
> --
> David Empson
> dem...@actrix.gen.nz
- - - ...and this from Gene Bloch ---
> > (Wanders off muttering and shaking head.)
>
> Me too.
>
> It's such a long and detailed manual that one might be forgiven for
> thinking that they might actually want to communicate. I no longer have
> that opinion.
>
> --
> Gene E. Bloch (Gino)
Wow! - thanks guys, glad I did not try to tackle Siemens docs
by myself, I never would have been able to understand them.
Mark-
Gene E. Bloch
> Mark-
Just be sure to put the blame where it goes - NOT on yourself :-)
--
Mark Conrad
<spam...@nobody.invalid> wrote:
Latest News :(
Phone company tech installed a brand new Siemens DSL modem,
model "Gigaset SE 567" which worked great for 2 days, then
blew up. "Internet" light on modem refused to light up,
same thing that happened with previous modem.
Gawd, I hate to go through this circus again.
If I knew how to configure a _different_ brand of DSL modem,
I would buy one and configure it myself.
Can't help but wonder if there is something else responsible for
zapping these modems, or if it is just a case of crappy modem design.
Mark-
Mark Conrad
<no-e...@here.invalid> wrote:
> Latest News :(
>
> Phone company tech installed a brand new Siemens DSL modem,
> model "Gigaset SE 567" which worked great for 2 days, then
> blew up. "Internet" light on modem refused to light up,
> same thing that happened with previous modem.
>
> Gawd, I hate to go through this circus again.
>
> If I knew how to configure a _different_ brand of DSL modem,
> I would buy one and configure it myself.
>
>
> Can't help but wonder if there is something else responsible for
> zapping these modems, or if it is just a case of crappy modem design.
>
> Mark-
Whew! - that was close! There DSL server was "down" for a few hours,
everything working okay now.
Hate to think what would happen if I had to _rely_ on this DSL
connection. :-/
Mark-
Warren Oates
Mark Conrad <no-e...@here.invalid> wrote:
> Phone company tech installed a brand new Siemens DSL modem,
> model "Gigaset SE 567" which worked great for 2 days, then
> blew up. "Internet" light on modem refused to light up,
> same thing that happened with previous modem.
>
> Gawd, I hate to go through this circus again.
>
> If I knew how to configure a _different_ brand of DSL modem,
> I would buy one and configure it myself.
It sounds like flakey "infrastructure". There's probably a loose
connection in the central office somewhere.
--
W. Oates
Gene E. Bloch
I'm guessing that you don't mean in the wires :-)
--
Gene E. Bloch
> Mark-
I recall two events where I installed new Internet hardware and
couldn't get setup to work, only to find out - eventually - that the
ISP's network had failed just about at the moment that I powered on the
new device.
It's very amusing, once you've had enough time to recover your
composure :-)
BTW, I recently switched from DSL after my partner was unable to
connect to her work system at about 3 AM when she was on call & got a
page. This happened another time or two, but not since I switched to
cable Internet (knock on wood).
--