I recently Acquired an LRT224 as a replacement for our Offices that were trying to use a Netgear Consumer Switch that was struggling to service 30+ connections+VPN Tunnels through the poor thing. I asked that we upgrade to something a bit more Small Business and less Home Web Surfing and here we are. FYI, I am at the most current Firmware for the device (1.0.3.09) and I can not tell if I am having issues due to lack of knowledge or if the unit is just bugged up. In the grand scheme, 90% of the devices connecting are getting their IP's, reaching their destinations and working as expected. My problems come down to our 2 SIP phones and 4 "Special" laptops/assets we have in house that need specific ports open.
Without getting long winded here, I need to specify ports for the phones and the laptops to make their connections. I think my problems lay with Access Rules and thier Priorities. I have setup Rules to point at Static IP's so that those machines have access to the ports, but things get hit or miss. Then tonight out of pure Frustration, I changed the order of Priority of 2 rules for the SIP phones and suddenly Audio worked great, Calls in and out started to route properly. A minor victory at last!
Now I still have more ports to open and point to static IP's but this discovery has given me Pause, Am I doing this wrong? Should I instead be forwarding ports to the devices instead of setting Access Rules? My Concern is I am going to have yet another miserable day tomorrow if I do not get the priority of ports correct, and based on the device vendors, I feel as though I am rolling dice as to how to prioritize the rules.
Any advice for a Newbie or someone who has been in my shoes would be immensely appreciated!
