Router Killed, Pete Saves the Day

Danger - Boring tech speak ahead, read at your own risk...of falling asleep


One of our routers died during the regular afternoon storms we experience. The router managed our CIDR block for our Cox IP addresses. As we still host a few small MS Exchange clients, the router dying caused a significant amount of heart pounding while I scrambled to find another router around the office to replace the defunct device.

You might cringe a bit but the previous routers was one of those cheap Linksys WRT that retailers churn out. We began using it as a test device but never got around to upgrading to a better unit. The device has been running for 5 years without a problem and we are currently working towards moving all of our hosting to Staunch Systems. I figured avoid spending the money on a device I will not need in the near future.

Insert shameless plug - Pete, my brother, sys admin, owner of Staunch Systems

I had another cheap D-link router but it did not have the capability of operating in router mode. I rummaged through another stack and found a Netgear Prosafe, but no router mode. I scrambled around a bit, found nothing (I should note that my brother offered me a Cisco device but he was busy and I felt a bit like I was abusing him). I ended up using another Linksys flashed with DD-WRT.

I copied all the previous settings from the old router. While I had Internet access, traffic was not passing through to the Peplink router behind the CIDR router. I called Pete again and we started walking through some things together. He found an issue with the netmask, he suspected the information was wrong. Calling Cox did not help much, they gave us the wrong information. We ended up finding the correct netmask (which Pete already suspected what it was) buy looking up our account information on the Cox business site.

The netmask did not cure the issue, traffic still could not pass through from the CIDR router to the Peplink router. In the end, talking back and forth, I think Dan got involved as well (another brother), Pete landed on the firewall page of the CIDR router. At this point, I did one of those Homer Simpson moments, and felt like a complete bonehead. I left the firewall enabled on the CIDR router. Pete made a quick change and the traffic flowed like normal.