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Reference Manual for the Model FVS318 Cable/DSL ProSafe VPN Firewall
Preparing Your Network 3-9
For a single-user Internet account, your ISP supplies TCP/IP configuration information for one
PC. With a typical account, much of the configuration information is dynamically assigned when
your PC is first booted up while connected to the ISP, and you will not need to know that dynamic
information.
In order to share the Internet connection among several computers, your firewall takes the place of
the single PC, and you need to configure it with the TCP/IP information that the single PC would
normally use. When the firewall’s Internet port is connected to the broadband modem, the firewall
appears to be a single PC to the ISP. The firewall then allows the PCs on the local network to
masquerade as the single PC to access the Internet through the broadband modem. The method
used by the firewall to accomplish this is called Network Address Translation (NAT) or IP
masquerading.
Login Protocols
Some ISPs require a special login protocol, in which you must enter a login name and password in
order to access the Internet. If you normally log in to your Internet account by running a program
such as WinPOET or EnterNet, then your account uses PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE).
When you configure your firewall, you will need to enter your login name and password in the
firewall’s configuration menus. After your network and firewall are configured, the firewall will
perform the login task when needed, and you will no longer need to run the login program from
your PC. It is not necessary to uninstall the login program.
Account Information
Unless these items are dynamically assigned by the ISP, your ISP should give you the following
basic information for your account:
• An IP address and subnet mask
• A gateway IP address, which is the address of the ISP’s router
• One or more domain name server (DNS) IP addresses
• Host name and domain suffix
For example, your account’s full server names may look like this:
mail.xxx.yyy.com
In this example, the domain suffix is xxx.yyy.com.