HITRON ROUTER AND STATIC IP

[neon013]

I have Virgin Media Business account with a HITRON router and at point of sale was told the 1 static IP I ordered would be sufficient to allow me to switch from PlusNet (1 static IP) and essentially use the HITRON router in modem only mode. PlusNet only offers 56Mb rather than the 350Mb claimed by Virgin.

I have a Draytek (handling VPM/VOIP) router that I cannot get to go through the HITRON for internet/VPM to other sites.

Having contacted VMB they are now telling me this is not possible. 

Reviewing other posts I cannot find any conclusive answer other than that others may have achieved the desired result by purchasing 5 static IPs or reverting to dynamic (and hoping it doesn't change). 

Could someone advise :-

1. Is 1 static IP possible ? i.e. has anyone achieved this via a third party router (hopefully Draytek) - I had an engineer at home recently who stated it was - "but its complicated and involves DMZ?"

2. Has anyone setup a Draytek router with a HITRON router - either one or multiple static IPs that pass through the HITRON. 

NOTE: I cannot really risk dynamic IPs although it would be interesting to know how sticky they are - hence does anyone have any experience of this.

Finally does anyone know if I use the residential service (at home) and order Homeworks (presumably with 1 static IP) I can achieve the same results via a different virgin router?

As 3 other sites are scheduled for engineers to arrive (who won't touch the Draytek!) I need to know if I'm cancelling virgin altogether or if there is a solution out there.

[jharris]

We're using a Draytek Vigor 2830 behind a Hitron modem/router. You won't be able to use modem only mode if you need the static IP, as the Hitron routing firmware will send data via the GRE tunnel for the static (as I understand it).

Connect the Draytek WAN port to the Hitron. Ensure the Hitron has a DHCP lease setup for the Draytek MAC so its IP isn't changed. Then add the Draytek IP to the Hitron DMZ.

[neon013]

Nearly but no cigar!

The Draytek WAN is now green but I still cannot access the internet, presumably as the Vigor and HITRON are not talking as I could not get DMZ working - see below.

From your post carried out the following:-

1. On the HITRON : DCHP reserved the Vigor router - 192.168.13.1  its MAC address given as Active - OK

2.  On the Vigor : added the MAC address of itself to the DHCP/bind list. I did note that this in NOT the same as the default MAC address of the one use in WAN->Internet Access but was the one seen under system status when you first login to the router (and the same as the one in point 1)

3. On the Vigor : Obtain IP address automatically and rebooted. - Got green light but could not browse.

4. On the HITRON : tried to add the active/connected Vigor router under DMZ but received the message :-

     "Host IP not included in the LAN IP subnet"

      NOTE: my HITRON has been given the IP address 192.168.13.2  i.e. one higher than my Vigor at 192.168.13.1. Additionally in am unable to ping the Vigor from the HITRON. 

Hopefully this is something obvious as I am really really fed up with trying to solve something that was seamless with PlusNet and Virgin Media Business should guiding me through.

[jharris]

A couple of things in your setup differ to ours there. We've got firmware version 4.5.10.142-SIP-UPC on the Hitron.

The hitron subnet is 192.168.0.1/24, with the DHCP pool starting at 192.168.0.10, so 192.168.0.10 is DHCP reserved for the Draytek WAN MAC.

The default MAC address for the Draytek WAN does match up for us.

You should also check your Draytek 'WAN > General Setup' section to make sure the Draytek is trying to use the ethernet port for WAN and not any other connection (USB/ADSL).

Hope that helps.

[neon013]

Once again. Really appreciate the reply.

I think I will need to bite the bullet and change the Vigor to a new IP within the HITRON range. 

Out of hours plan is to try..

1. Vigor onto HITRON subnet range. The HITRON would not accept 192.168.13.0 as its static ip for some reason. When I changed Vigor IP in the 'bind ip' i.e. to 192.168.13.8 (but kept the Vigor IP as 192.168.13.1 under LAN->General) I still received "Host IP not included in the LAN IP subnet" . Juts to check it's going to be the LAN IP address in the DMZ field i.e. 192.168.13.8 in my example (= DHCP allocation on the HITRON)? 

2. Potential HITRON firmware update. I'm not sure what we have but it was only installed last week so should be up to date.

Ethernet port is OK.

As an aside I did speak with Virgin and they immediately accepted a 'fragmentation' issue for static IP - they say they will ring back in 24 hours. watch this space.

[neon013]

One further question I forgot to ask ?

When you say your setup works - Do you pay for 5 static IPs, 1 static IP or are using the dynamic service? This is important as I now have 2 non working sites - one with 1 static IP and the other with 5 static IPs (even though I just need 1 IP to work and hopefully bring my network to life)

[Benjiboy87]

Hi Neon

I am not sure if that 1 IP proposal put forward will work using the DMZ setting as when the Hitron is in modem mode and you have the package with only 1 public IP then it uses a dynamic.

The reason for the 5 static bundle is because when you are using multiple devices such as modem AND router, each device needs an IP address. So the hitron will need an IP address (whether its static or dynamic) and the draytek will need one too.

In this situation you wouldn't use the LAN DHCP settings on the Hitron, instead you would ask VMB for your IP Pool details and then set the WAN IP manually on the draytek to match. I think it is usually, IP 1 is for VMB, IP 2 is for your modem so IP3 is the first public IP you can use for the Draytek.

Cheers

[SteveTS]

This thread intrigues me, a client has just taken a virgin business line with 5 IPs.

Virgin cannot give me a conclusive or accurate answer on how to set the Hilton up to pass all the IPs though to our Firewall.

One said use modem mode, one said don't. One said use modem mode but it automatically does it". That was after waiting an hour and a half on hold, then the engineer not understanding what i was trying to achieve by saying i needed to route the IP range though to our firewall.

I'm going to configure the firewall with the 2nd IP we've been given, and connect to the Hiltron and see if it works...

If anyone's interested, ill report back.

[DavideMcGaide]

I'm very interested in how this goes. 

Currently, have the Hitron with a single Static IP and a new Gamma Sip being installed. Got some calls working and some not with the phone engineer suggesting it might be a double NAT issue with the Draytek 2960 and the CGNV4 Hitron router. 

Can't modem only mode due to the single Static IP. 

[alfredthegrape]

I'm having similar grief with the Hitron CGNv4 and a Draytek 2860. With a single static IP the only way I could make the internet available to the Draytek was to configure the WAN2 interface of the latter as a DHCP client of the LAN; not ideal but as VoIP wasn't required then the double NAT-ing wasn't a concern.

However, switching to a block of eight static IP addresses (five usable) only provides internet access if the static/dynamic IP WAN internet access page of the Draytek is statically configured with one address from the block of five. The other four addresses are not accessible. The so-called technical support of VMB is in my experience utterly useless because the people I speak to don't appear to know the first thing about IP networking, and even less about the Hitron router. The Hitron is configured as a modem and so doesn't have an IP address and doesn't do NAT or DHCP, but it is the customer end of the GRE tunnel that VMB uses to host those elusive remaining static IP addresses and so can't be dispensed with. VMB either can't or won't explain exactly how the Hitron forwards the necessary information to the WAN interface of any router, not just the Draytek. I'm quite prepared to admit that I might be missing something obvious and fundamental, but one of the jobs of any technical support department is to point out such errors and supply the correct information to make the service work as advertised. This has not happened... It seems that I'm expected to discover via some kind of osmosis what the solution is, because VMB's technical team certainly doesn't know, or if it does know it certainly isn't telling me.

It's interesting that VMB doesn't appear to have its own community - everything I've read about this and related issues is on this forum.