Shields Up site and ICMP

[Oldie]

Evening all.

I used to have an Ambit 256 modem into which I connected a Linksys cable router, cabled to computer running Linux. This resulted in invisible status on the Shields Up site.

I have been upgraded with the Netgear Super-Hub (wired connection to PC) and at first it failed the Shields Up scan showing ICMP being returned. No other ports showing.

I suspected this was the Super-Hub rather than my computer so I've disabled the Ping - (Advanced / DMZ Host / Respond to Ping on Wan port) in the Super-Hub. This now returns an invisible status at Shields Up.

Should this cause any problems, and if so (if I enable it), is this less preferable than being invisible?

Thanks for reading.

[thenry]

No probs VM side if you disable respond to ping

[Oldie]

Thank you very much for responding thenry. I'll mark this post resolved, even though at my age I usually require a second opinion. :-)

[Stuart]

Shouldn't cause any problems VM side. After all, if VM need to communicate with your modem, they don't need to ping it.

[Peter_]

Considering the online tools in use I rather doubt that Technical Support will have any issues connecting to your Superhub as they will still be able to check out your power levels and reboot it remotely if required, I also doubt that if they send any pings via the tools that they will be stopped either, plus 2nd line can ping you via the CMTS if required.

[Andrewcrawford23]

Considering the online tools in use I rather doubt that Technical Support will have any issues connecting to your Superhub as they will still be able to check out your power levels and reboot it remotely if required, I also doubt that if they send any pings via the tools that they will be stopped either, plus 2nd line can ping you via the CMTS if required.

the ping feature is internal ie on the 10.* network that intrnal virign ip operate on and the shub will blok imcp from external ips not internal hence why it stillg et through

before someone says 10.* is private ip addressing i am awaare and virgin equipment uses it but you never see it you only ever see hte public ip, the stb use th private ip more where you can see if you go into the engineer menu

[Peter_]

the ping feature is internal ie on the 10.* network that intrnal virign ip operate on and the shub will blok imcp from external ips not internal hence why it stillg et through

before someone says 10.* is private ip addressing i am awaare and virgin equipment uses it but you never see it you only ever see hte public ip, the stb use th private ip more where you can see if you go into the engineer menu
2nd line can see and ping your default gateway as well.

[Kymmy]

The only things I and a few others use which requires ping is the thinkbroadband ping monitors (pingtest.net doesn't need them as it pings the applet in the browser)

[qasdfdsaq]

Indeed, which brings me back to an old point of mine that the "router" and the "modem" parts of the Superhub are two distinct and completely seperate logical devices, simply glued together in one box.

[General Maximus]

what a super idea. Do you think if I glued my Linksys router and VMNG300 together and put them in a pretty box I could get away with calling them the new superhub?

[kwikbreaks]

Only if you removed any WiFi aerials to cut down on signal, made sure the ports were pointing in an awkward direction, and added a few 1w blue LEDs. Nearly forgot - disable any vaguely useful firmware options too.

[Oldie]

Thank you all, I appreciate the extra replies. I tried to achieve the invisible status on the Shields-Up site as I read some time ago this was preferable for security. Having achieved this with the default settings on my old modem and router but not the default settings on the Superhub, I thought perhaps VM may require the ICMP for firmware upgrade or something, but with your advice I now know it's OK to disable it.

However, I regret I didn't quite understand every aspect of your replies.

Andrewcrawford23..... Your reply was a bit technical for me. Are you saying that by me disabling the Ping (as I have done to achieve the invisible status on the Shield-Up site) this will block ICMP from Shields-Up and other external IPs only and not VM? Which will of course be fine by me. And then are you saying that VM use Ping on a 10.* private IP to connect to the Superhub? I obviously know even less than I thought.


qasdfdsaq..... Two logical devices you say. Is it then the logical modem or router that returned the ICMP to the Shields-Up site before I disabled Ping?

Slightly Off Topic......
I must just say I'm pleased with the Super-Hub so far, and indeed the service from VM and NTL before them. I'm obviously no expert and struggle to understand this IT revolution at the back-end of my existence on this little blue planet. The security issue is an irritant after growing up on an estate where nobody needed to lock their doors. I now have a burglar alarm and have to consider online security - absurd as I have nothing worth stealing. My new sleek and elegant Super-Hub sits in pride of place on a shelf looking down smugly winking its little blue eye at my old Linux boxes.

[Andrewcrawford23]

Thank you all, I appreciate the extra replies. I tried to achieve the invisible status on the Shields-Up site as I read some time ago this was preferable for security. Having achieved this with the default settings on my old modem and router but not the default settings on the Superhub, I thought perhaps VM may require the ICMP for firmware upgrade or something, but with your advice I now know it's OK to disable it.

However, I regret I didn't quite understand every aspect of your replies.

Andrewcrawford23..... Your reply was a bit technical for me. Are you saying that by me disabling the Ping (as I have done to achieve the invisible status on the Shield-Up site) this will block ICMP from Shields-Up and other external IPs only and not VM? Which will of course be fine by me. And then are you saying that VM use Ping on a 10.* private IP to connect to the Superhub? I obviously know even less than I thought.


qasdfdsaq..... Two logical devices you say. Is it then the logical modem or router that returned the ICMP to the Shields-Up site before I disabled Ping?

Slightly Off Topic......
I must just say I'm pleased with the Super-Hub so far, and indeed the service from VM and NTL before them. I'm obviously no expert and struggle to understand this IT revolution at the back-end of my existence on this little blue planet. The security issue is an irritant after growing up on an estate where nobody needed to lock their doors. I now have a burglar alarm and have to consider online security - absurd as I have nothing worth stealing. My new sleek and elegant Super-Hub sits in pride of place on a shelf looking down smugly winking its little blue eye at my old Linux boxes.

ok ill try explain, lets say oyu have your internal network ok... you use 192168.0.* as the ip range, your ocmptuer will all get one of those ip where * is replace from 2-254 as0,1 and 255 are reserved

your rotuer on the otehr side the wan side has the public ip that what allow you onto the internet

the modme itself has two ip one which oyu can find the oteh isnt seen

the one you see is the public ip, the hidden on is 10.* ip which is private netowrking ip that the modem uses for it conencting to the cmts as teh cmts as such is yoru rotuer ie the one that gives yoru own comptuer 192.168.0.* and it needs to give them the private ip as well, i wouldnt worry about it basically all you need ot know is shields up says your safe and virign if required can access yoru modem

not to put oyu off ;) just cause shield up says yoru not seen doesnt mean your are invisible jsut means it harder to see you ;) if someone can get yoru ip then they will if they know wha thtere doign coudl get in, but most hacker with that sort fo skill dnt care about user they care about hacking things liek the cia etc for buzz

[qasdfdsaq]

Only if you removed any WiFi aerials to cut down on signal, made sure the ports were pointing in an awkward direction, and added a few 1w blue LEDs. Nearly forgot - disable any vaguely useful firmware options too.
Spot on.

Mind you the BT Home Hub 3's firmware is exceedingly well put together and looks a damn sight better than VM's, though its wireless throughput (or lack thereof) would give the Superhub a run for its money.

[kwikbreaks]

To my mind no ISP supplied kit is usually up to much. I don't know anything about the current BT Home hub but the original ADSL Home Hub was a POS of the highest degree - it was so picky about the connection that it of itself could lose users a Mb or more because the over engineered DLM would bump the target noise margin to keep the wretched things connected. Back in the day an easy upgrade was to buy your own ADSL router and put the BT Home Hub in the bin. Mind you a better tune up was to pick a different ISP - I'm just hoping that BT have learned their lesson over the years and Infinity is managed better than their ADSL was. It's taking considerable courage on my part to trust BT....

[qasdfdsaq]

I gave up trying to test the HomeHub 3 after my connection attempts failed two thirds of the time. Shame really, as output and signal quality are exceptionally good. Still, it's optional and I have no intention of using it as more than a toy.

[Oldie]

Thank you very much Andrewcrawford23, very helpful indeed.

I'm not quite sure why this post has turned into a comment log regarding the quality and efficiency of the Superhub. That wasn't my intention or question. As for me, I'm easily satisfied, it has a nice shiny case and elucidative flashing lights; the technology compared to my first 56 kbit/s dial-up modem makes it a Lamborghini, a Jimmy Page of guitarists, an Arcade Fire of live performance, a Quaker Oaks of porridge manufacturers. I never dreamt back in 1999 of the sort of speed we have now. It certainly seems to work OK so far. If it's not the best, well, who really needs the best?

[qasdfdsaq]

Every thread on this board turns into a comment log regarding the quality and efficiency (or lack thereof) of the Superhub. It is after all, central to VM's broadband service, which is in turn central to this board.

[AndyCalling]

Thank you very much Andrewcrawford23, very helpful indeed.

I'm not quite sure why this post has turned into a comment log regarding the quality and efficiency of the Superhub. That wasn't my intention or question. As for me, I'm easily satisfied, it has a nice shiny case and elucidative flashing lights; the technology compared to my first 56 kbit/s dial-up modem makes it a Lamborghini, a Jimmy Page of guitarists, an Arcade Fire of live performance, a Quaker Oaks of porridge manufacturers. I never dreamt back in 1999 of the sort of speed we have now. It certainly seems to work OK so far. If it's not the best, well, who really needs the best?

Heh, remember back when the web first got going? We'd all been happily telneting and gophering about the place thinking how much better this was than isolated BBSs and suddenly we had this web browser thing thrust upon us that seemed to take about 10 minutes to download each web page. On a good day. I hear it's still like that on AOL ADSL so perhaps VM aren't such bad sticks after all. :)~

[General Maximus]

I'm not quite sure why this post has turned into a comment log regarding the quality and efficiency of the Superhub. That wasn't my intention or question. As for me, I'm easily satisfied, it has a nice shiny case and elucidative flashing lights; the technology compared to my first 56 kbit/s dial-up modem makes it a Lamborghini, a Jimmy Page of guitarists, an Arcade Fire of live performance, a Quaker Oaks of porridge manufacturers. I never dreamt back in 1999 of the sort of speed we have now. It certainly seems to work OK so far. If it's not the best, well, who really needs the best?

Although we all enjoy having a bitch about it we arent doing it for the sake of it. Like qas said, it is a product that is core to VM's service and it truely isn't fit for purpose. If you are happy with what it is doing for you then qudos to you. The reason why I along wioth a few others will immediately tell you it is rubbish and to get a proper router is because we can come on the forum everyday and at least two or three threads have been started by newbies complaining about wireless performance or the router freezing up so we just get straight to the point with the best solution to recify the problem and solve your long term needs. If had a proper router to start off with you wouldnt have had any of these problems.

Like I said, if you are happy with it then I wish you the best of luck :tu:

[Kymmy]

Back on topic please