Comcast Business Question

The SMC8013WG-CCR is in question. This was provided by Comcast to us with the service, and well...it's a steaming pile of shit, TBH. Comcast nerfed a lot of the features (I can't even assign static addresses and such, i.e. to a router (we do not want to use its NAT'ing/firewall capabilities, just as a modem), and it's really pretty annoying.

Are there custom firmware-type dealios around for this (or they'll just get overwritten by TFTP pushes from Comcast?), or should I look at just getting a new, cable-modem "only" (no gateway/routing/etc)? I think you can use any modem with Comcast Business as well now, after you give them the MAC address?

I have quite a few clients on them. You can easily map public IPs to your own router, which I do on all of my setups, so you're bypassing the router feature of the SMC..using it only as a bridge.

I also have an SMC router provided by Comcast Business at one of my clients.

worked fine for 2 years until 7/2 @ 4pm,all of a sudden the office couldnt get onto the net, they called me the next AM and I went down, verified everything up to the modem is working aok.

Called Comcast and for some reason 'the block of IP's you were issued are no longer valid on Comcast's network"
They issued me new IP's, but I cant get anyone in from the net (RDP, RWW, OWA, VPN, PCanywhere, SMTP)

I have the 'new' static IP set on the SMC (new gateway, subnet and DNS as well) but still no luck.

So yeh, setting static with the SMC is doable....but Comcast sill hasnt fixed the problem for me.
Monday night I order DSL for the office....Ive been looking for some updated firmwares for the SMC...just havent had much time.

I know the SMC is a PIA. It just doesn't operate the way the rest of the world does.
They work ok as long as you don't follow Comcast tech advice to setup your router.

Ask them what public IP and subnet to use for your add-on router. Make sure firewall & DHCP is off on the SMC and then setup your router. Comcast will tell you to use the public IP of the SMC as your gateway IP, but that will not work. Use the private IP of the SMC as the gateway IP.

That threw me for a loop when setting up a customer of mine too. My mistake was listening to Comcast instead of figuring out the problem myself to begin with. I have everything working (VPN, etc.) fine on a firewall/router behind the SMC.

BTW, if you do a factory reset on the SMC, you'll need to call tech support and have them set it up (remotely) again. They will ask you the current IP of the router and then they will connect to it and reconfig and then reboot it. Then it will have the correct static IP again. I do not recommend trying to upgrade the SMC firmware or any advanced config changes. I originally started off down that road too, but it's the wrong direction.

Im headed to the office now.

new info
ip - x.x.4.17
gateway x.x.4.18

4.18 is the Cisco UBR modem/router...thats not doing any routing
4.17 is already set on the WAN side of the SMC, with 4.18 as the gateway

internal of the SMC is 192.168.150.111 (its not doing any DNS/DHCP either)

internet -> Cisco USB904 modem -> SMC -> switch -> server/printers/PC's

Yeah, I just ended up turning off its DHCP, giving my pfsense box a static IP that falls under the SMC's subnet, and DMZ'ing the thing.

movax said:

Yeah, I just ended up turning off its DHCP, giving my pfsense box a static IP that falls under the SMC's subnet, and DMZ'ing the thing.

Click to expand...

That will work but in the future you can have them switch the modem/router into bridge mode. I've had them do it on like 5 clients.

movax said:

Yeah, I just ended up turning off its DHCP, giving my pfsense box a static IP that falls under the SMC's subnet, and DMZ'ing the thing.

Click to expand...

You still end up sorta double NAT'ing if you DMZ..it's not as clean as pure bridge mode. If you don't know how....all you have to do is call Comcasts support...I don't have the steps on the SMC memorized yet like I do on Speedstream DSL modem/gateways...but all you have to do is call Comcast support..tell them you are using your own router, and you need your router to obtain a public IP address on its WAN interface. They will always walk you through the steps of what to do on the SMC, I've done it quite a few times and they're always wonderfully cooperative and helpful in doing so. Takes just a few minutes.

i have one that i think is an SMC, but i cant find a name on it.

all routing and NAT/firewall features are 100% turned off, and mine is configured strictly for bridge mode. ive never seen a business class modem that cant be configured for bridge-only mode.

100% no problems.

Just got off the phone with Comcast Support . According to their tech they no longer offer bridging, and you cant get it , When I asked what exactly I should do to get my VPN's back up I was told other people have done it , Thats the extent of the support. I couldnt get the DMZ to work but thanks to this post I realized forgot to turn off DCHP]
I left customer because I was able to https to the external IP and got a login prompt
Tried it from our office and I'm unable to connect. Anyone know how to remotely manage one of these things
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