Loss of Connectivity Issues

How are the settings?

Is your IP address vast?

Did you try to install the sonics as access points?

Do your clients have own addresses?

Forgot something: how you get it back to work? Rebooting? or you need different to do different steps? I am not very familiar with your brands.

Hello,

My Best Guess:

1) I think you've have too many TZ 170's. I don't understand the need for the second one. Who's standards?

2) The administration switch can go into either the OPT port (after properly configuring it) or a LAN port. Opt port probably the better choice.

3) The subscriber gateway should provide all the "physical separation" you need.

4) A quick look at the sonic wall sonic OS Standard 3.1 administrators guide on page 97 indicates the procedure for Flushing the ARP Cache and configuring the arp cache timeout.

5) As far as your not being able to reach devices on you network when the system goes down, it's most likely doing what it should, it thinks it's under attack and blocking access. There are remedies in the administrators guide that may work to gain access to your network from "outside" it.

I suggest you talk with Sonicwall support directly about this. They probably won't like losing one (I'll bet) pricey "subscription" but that's life. The management computer is used for the initial set up and need not be left there unless you are changing the settings constantly.

Without knowing anything other than what you've provided, those are my guesses.

Good Morning Gary,

A couple of assumptions here:

1) Your 'management' computer is 'hardwired in' and not a laptop and which is removed when not in use?

2) Your outages occur at some form of peak time (check-in, check-out, dinner time)?

What you did not say is the type if ISP that you have (Cable, DSL). From the literature, the TZ-170 is able to accommodate both and appears to be 'dial up' as well.

I concur with Guest in that I see no purpose in the dual sonicwalls, though, I believe that the 'pricey' subscriptions are for the 8/5 or 24/7 service contracts.

What occurs out here in 'End-of-the-Earth, Oregon, is that the DSL bandwidth becomes particularly stretched, just about the end of lunchtime (highest level of POS activity). In especially bad cases, the ISP provided DSL Modem (Actiontec, and no bad reflection upon them) will start to hunt due to low level. If enough packets 'error', it WILL crash. But, it will also revert to the defaults and restart itself.

Could this be occurring to you because you have the two sonicwals in series and their 'deep packet scanning' creates an error dropout? I would presume that in a year, you have had them on the 'line'? Or, are you not subscripted to their tech support?

Have you tried running this system with just one sonicwall?

My initial suggestion would be to remove (actually the first sonicwall, as it is in transparent mode[or is it really, but that is another question]). Reconfigure your system to operate on just one unit, with the your group's standard settings.

I cannot see the risk of this, as I (again) presume that your accounting/proprietary data on the administrative side are properly encrypted and password protected.

My last query: Are you having the exact same problem at all three properties?

Sadly, most of the solutions to this type of problem are a matter of nuance. When the answer IS found, prepare your forehead, slap repeatedly and robustly and then, take copious notes!

More data, please...

Best on 'ya,

GLB