network question - is this unusual?

[Daniel B. Thurman]

Gerhard Magnus wrote:
> I recently had to deal with my ISP about a connectivity problem that
> turned out to be on their end. (The tech referred to linux as lie-nux
> and insisted on doing everything in XP which I fortunately had
> dual-booted.) But in the process of working through this it was
> necessary for me to describe the way I'd set up my LAN here and he
> seemed incredulous. This wouldn't bother me except that I've gotten this
> reaction before from people in the outside world but never an
> explanation. So I'm asking: is there something weird about this
> structure? Is there some "better" or more standard setup?
>
> The DSL modem Actiontec modem provided by Quest plugs into the phone
> jack. The Actiontec is an older model with only one ethernet plug. Since
> I have four boxes, two of which are dual booting Fedora and XP, I have
> an ethernet cable connecting the modem to the DSL plug of a Linksys
> router. I then have separate cables connecting the four outlets on the
> router to each of the four boxes. (I did all this cabling at a time
> before wireless routing was as available and cheap as it is today.)
>
> Each of the six operating systems (4 linux and 2 XP) has a static IP
> address and each has a firewall. I have NFS running on the linux
> systems. There's another firewall on the router, which is currently
> port-forwarding only ssh and torrent data from the outside world.
>
> I thought I'd check this out before going further....
>   
I have done this many times, as far back as I can remember
so I'd think it's pretty common.  I have found that some of
the first-line techs can be pretty clueless, so you could force
escalate to a higher level tech if you are not getting anywhere
or, do the research yourself.  Kind of hard to do without an
Internet connection ;)

My home system  uses a Westell modem, in bridge mode,
and is hooked to a Trendnet 300Mb/s wireless router.

At another place, I have an ActionTec with Quest branding,
pretty azure/blue glow lights modem.  This is one is wireless
but without the module and I declined the upgrade (cuz it was at
rip-off prices at the time) and got a better deal for an Airlink 150N
wireless router at sale prices.

As with both modems mentioned abovet, the setup is to set the
modems in "bridge" mode  which means, all data is passed through
with no restrictions.  After that,  just hook up the Ethernet cable from
the modem to your (wireless) router's WAN connection.  What's left
then, is to configure the firewall settings on the router.