Sidebar: Dedicated Lines

My firewall connects to the internet via a dial-up PPP connection. If your connection to the Internet runs via another interface, a 56k or ISDN packet connection for instance, you may use the following alternative. Use a dedicated router that connects to your Internet connection on one side, and a "normal" Ethernet on the other side. Then, equip your firewall with a second network card. Finally, connect your firewall, with a separate cable, to the router. The firewall will now transport packets between the two Ethernets. This is shown in Figure 1. Note that it is very important to use two physically separate network segments for this setup.