Separate Modem and Router Advice needed

[remus]

Hi all,

Every time our internet goes offline I simply reboot the ADSL-modem/Router device.
Oour LAN goes offline for the duration.

With many of the community centres I.T. resources now centrally accessed on a (Microcore+Samba) file server from LAN connected windows workstations, having to reboot the modem to get the internet working again requires a walk around the whole centre and warning people to save/close their files and database connections. This is a big problem for reception who could sometimes have a big queue of people.

I was wondering if I would solve the LAN uptime problem by having a Dedicated ADSL Modem feed internet to a dedicated Router ?

At the moment our network looks something like this

ADSL-Router ---> 48 port switch

I'm thinking of something like this

ADSL Modem ---> Router ---> 48 port switch

I have very little networking knowledge and would appreciate any comments or suggestions about this idea ?

Thanks,
Remus

[Rich]

Hi remus
Are you sure rebooting the modem will disrupt the LAN? I would think local (LAN) traffic would continue to be routed by the
48 port network switch. I would think rebooting the modem would only interrupt traffic to the outside world (WAN).

[core-user]

Yes, I too think that it would only be internet connection disruption, the switch should be controlling your own network traffic.

[curaga]

Echo the above, the separate switch should keep the LAN up. Also, many modems let you turn the WAN interface off and on via the web panel, not needing a full reboot.

[Nathan_SR]

I was wondering if I would solve the LAN uptime problem by having a Dedicated ADSL Modem feed internet to a dedicated Router ?

At the moment our network looks something like this

ADSL-Router ---> 48 port switch

I'm thinking of something like this

ADSL Modem ---> Router ---> 48 port switch

I have very little networking knowledge and would appreciate any comments or suggestions about this idea ?

Thanks,
Remus

Hi Remus,

I guess, you are referring to INTERNET uptime problem, instead of LAN uptime problem.
in this case, putting the ADSL modem in BRIDGE MODE ( from its web interface ) and having a dedicated free router system like Pfsense OR Zeroshell, in between, as you said, will help you, automatically dial / re-dial the modem, as necessary, without needing to bring any of them down. You may need to read the documentation on their websites ( Pfsense OR Zeroshell ) before implementing the same.

Regards,

Nathan SR