VT2442 Router and domain hosting
 

This isn't a Linux problem at all, but I'm hoping someone else has been afflicted with this router and can give me a pointer or two.

I've got a Motorola VT2442 that I got from Vonage for VOIP (it is replacing a Linksys RTP300 that died). I've got a Slackware server behind this that I use for hosting a few web sites and SSH access. In order to make life easier, I've had a no-ip.com domain that has worked well.

If I access the server from out on the Internet, all is well. I can go to mydomain.no-ip.org and see the sites I host. SSH works perfectly well also. However, if I try to use either the domain name or the WAN IP address from a computer on the LAN, the router doesn't forward the traffic to the server. Instead, it grabs the traffic and points it towards its own configuration page. The same goes for ssh. If I try to ssh mydomain.no-ip.org from inside my LAN, I end up connected to the router's SSH server rather than the Slackware box. I'm pretty convinced this isn't normal behavior as none of the Linksys routers I've used ever did this. They always handled traffic heading towards the WAN side correctly, regardless of WAN or LAN origin.

I'm positive I've got port forwarding set up correctly since computers on the Internet can successfully use the domain.

I'm hoping that someone has some experience with this router and can give some advice as this is about to drive me absolutely mouth-foaming bonkers. Thanks in advance.

try using the actual ip address instead of name for reaching it from inside the lan..just a guess but thats what I have to do with servers on the dmz of my firewall

Thanks for the suggestion (and welcome to LQ by the way), but I had tried that and ran into the same problem. I finally reached "technical support" at Vonage, and after having to go through a couple of clowns who didn't know what port forwarding was, I reached clown #3 who claimed that routers are supposed to behave like this.

I solved the problem by putting an old Linksys router in front of the VT2442 and running my network off of that.

yes I'm fighting vt2442 network woes myself, seems like a waste to have a 4 port switch I can't even use because I choose to use my smoothwall firewall to do my routing. I wanted to put the vt2442 on the dmz and use it to route to my wireless ap and web/mailserver, but I cant seem to find a way to make this thing work behind the firewall. Phone works fine but all I can use the 4 rj45 ports for is to log into the vt2442 to use the web gui. so i guess I will get another switch! oh well it was free so I shouldn't complain, but as for me they should have just sent a one port (wan) device with phone jacks on it! I saw on vonage's forums where one guy got it working by using the wan port as the gateway for the lan, but I guess they decided to do away with allowing a gateway for the lan because allthough in the instruction manual I see where he put in the gateway information, my vt2442 doesn't have a spot for it!!! oh well Glad you got your problem worked out.

That's odd, I can connect to my vt2442 and get to the internet. I just plugged a cable from my Linksys router to the WAN port on the vt2442 and it seems to work fine. I would think that if you gave it a fixed IP address on the WAN side (and pointed to your Smoothwall box as the gateway), it should work. I seem to remember on mine that you could do this, at least on the WAN side. Now that said, I had a ton of trouble if I tried to mess with anything on the LAN side.

Personally, I can't figure out why they dumped Linksys as their router provider. I get the definite impression that Motorolla doesn't have much experience in building these things.