[SOLVED] Need a recommendation: business router

[DocGreen]

it's not called bridged mode....they used to be SMC here...most of mine are, but recently they started using Netgear gateways but the web admin looks the same.

You log in, 10.1.10.1,
cusadmin
highspeed

Click on the Firewall button on the left...
Click on Firewall Options tab towards the right...
Put a check in the box for "Disable Firewall for True Static IP Subnet Only"
And there's usually already a check in "Disable gateway smart packet inspection"...but if not...I put one there. Not related to the public IPs..it's just a filtering service that causes more problems than it prevents.
Click Apply button...done!

Now, go to "whatismyip.com"....jot down the IP it tells you you have. That should be the first IP address in the block of statics they gave you. Lets say that is 74.75.84.85. You can also confirm this by going to the gateways "status" section and looking at the WAN Internet IP Address. (which will be different from the WAN DHCP IP Address...that is the service address Comcast support uses).
You take the second IP of that block (or whatever order you want..the whole block is yours..you have something like 74.75.84.85-90)...and that is your routers primary public IP. So for your router, you'd assign the WAN port an IP such as 74.75.84.86...and you would make the gateway 74.75.84.85. The IP that the gateway has...will be the default/remote gateway that you use on your routers WAN connection.
And take the next IP..74.75.85.87, and if you use that..the gateway is still 74.75.84.85. So on and so forth for the whole block.

Leave DHCP on on the gateway. You can still use things plugged into it...VPN server, or phone system, or whatever...I often put Guest wireless networks directly onto the gateway, so they're on the 10.1.10.xxx range. And my own router does NAT and the main network is 10.0.0.x or 192.168.xxx.xxx.

Really... well now I want to look at those gateways and see if I missed it, lol.

 

[fencepost]

my own router does NAT and the main network is 10.0.0.x or 192.168.xxx.xxx

We tend to use 10.x.y.z, where x increases as we add customers and y increases within each customer for multiple sites. You can also set things up with some gaps on the third octet (y) so you can have multiple class-C subnets at each site, though that's less important these days. We used to do things like that before VLANs and managed switches became a regular thing at customers - dropping the phones and PCs onto separate subnets.

 

[HCHTech]

You log in, 10.1.10.1

Awesome primer, YeOlde! This is going in my Evernote.

The last one of the SMCs I wrestled with I swear we had everything setup right. I must have reset it and reentered everything a half-a-dozen times before crying uncle and calling mother Comcast. Like Mark V, once we got someone who knew what they were doing, they finally ticked the right box on their end or something and everything worked. 90 minutes of frustration I'd like not to relive - at least it was billable.

Tell me about using different IP for the router WAN, though. Comcast sells either a single static or a block of 5. If your customer only has a single IP, how does your configuration differ? I just had FIOS business internet installed at my own shop - I got a block of 5 addresses, but I don't recall exactly how we configured the Sonicwall - I had help, so I'm going to go back and look at that...