Converting a Dialup Smoothwall
Firewall to Optus Cable

The only precaution I took was to put the ethernet card I intended to use for red interface in the dummy PC I got the Optus tech to connect the cable modem to. That way, DHCP requests keep coming from the same MAC address. I had read around the traps that changing MAC addresses could cause problems.

On the green side, the TCP/IP config on my PCs was static as I had no DHCP server, so I just changed the default gateway and the primary DNS on each PC to the address of the smoothwall green interface.

As I said, it was all too easy! Go for it! Oh, and feel free to drop me a line direct if you have probs.

Here's a more detailed procedure:

1. Log into the smoothwall box at the console or via ssh as 'setup'.
2. From the resulting menu select 'Networking'.
3. Select the 'Network Configuration type' item.
4. Select the 'Green + Red' option. (IE both red & green are to be ethernet connections) & click OK.
5. Select 'Drivers & card assignments' and say 'OK' to change the settings.
6. If you've got a PCI card you can 'probe' for the correct driver, otherwise you'll have to 'select' the correct driver from the list.
7. Say 'OK' to assign it to the RED interface.
8. Click 'OK' to confirm all assignments.
9. From the menu select 'Address settings'.
10. Select 'RED' and click on 'OK'.
11. Check 'DHCP' and click on 'OK'
12. You should probably enter a host name at this screen if you don't already have one. I've seen recommendations that you use your Optusnet username, so I did.
13. Click on 'Done'.
14. Click on 'Done'.
15. Click on 'Quit'.
16. Smootwall should now DHCP an address for your RED ethernet card from Optus, and away you go.