Internet access with Cisco 3560

[jameson]

Hi all,

Hopefully a quick question. I’ve got a "flat" network I would like to split into several VLANs, I access the Internet via a Smoothwall box. I’ve got cisco 3560 switch and several VLANs configured on the that switch. VLANs are talking to my DHCP server fine. But the question is: can I connect my Smoothwall to my 3560 and access the Internet from my VLANs? I can ping Smootwall box from VLANs and I can ping Google from 3560 switch but not from VLANs. Is there a way of setting it up or 3560 does not support that?

Thanks.

[marce1000]

- Switches with their major task being at the layer2 level usually don't get involved in providing Internet access. The Vlan's should have IP-subnets assigned which must be routed to a default gateway which on it's own can act as a next  hop to the Internet for incoming packets from the inside subnets.. I am not familiar as to whether smoothwall can do that.

 M.

[jameson]

Smoothwall is just a firewall, it has two connections, one with our internal IP and one with an IP to connect to next hop (upstream proxy - which is another Smoothwall). So, can I redirect all traffic that is not for internal VLANs to the Smoothwall?

[Richard Burts]

@marce1000 makes a good point about the need for each vlan to have its own subnet and to be routed to a gateway. The statement that each vlan is able to ping the Smoothwall would seem to indicate that this has been done. The other thing that must be set up is address translation for the new subnets. It is my guess that Smoothwall has translation for the original subnet but does not currently have translation for the new subnets. I am not familiar with Smoothwall and do not know if it can support address translation for multiple networks.

HTH

Rick

[jameson]

Hi Rick, thank you for your reply. As far as I remember there are no special settings on Smoothwall but I'll check tomorrow morning.