RT-N66U Intermittent WAN loss

[JNeim]

So after doing a pretty good amount of scouring the internet I haven't been able to find an answer. Signed up here because it seems like there is a pretty good community here and I might be able to resolve my problem with your help!

I have Verizon Fios and I hated the fact that I had to primarily use their Actiontec Gateway and couldn't use my Asus Dark Knight router (RT-N66U). I had a TV issue about a week ago and spoke to a pretty cool tech and he told me that if I wanted I could run an Ethernet line from the ONT box and go directly into my router and bypass the gateway. But I would still need to incorporate the gateway due to the TV features being reliant on it (Guide, On demand, etc). So I got the line run the internet was working fine, I've used the router before in a Comcast setup and had no issues. But when I ran the LAN-LAN to the actiontec opened the port needed for the Set Top Boxes, every once in awhile it seems like my asus router loses its WAN connection, when the connection goes down I try to access the router and it takes me to the verizon landing page for the actiontec. So it's like the Asus router completely falls off or the actiontec tries to pull itself in front of my router. I'm seeing if anyone has an advice/knowledge on my situation or if I am doing something wrong. I tried doing a LAN-WAN connection (asus lan -> actiontec wan) but I can not see the set top boxes on the asus in this manner.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Did you disable the DHCP on the Actiontec? If not you will have to do so. Also the Verizon STBs require IPs in a specific range. You will need to assign the first STB 192.168.1.100 the second 192.168.1.101, etc

I much cleaner and simpler set up is to just double NAT you ASUS behind the Actiontec. Assign your ASUS its own subnet and run a cable from a LAN port to the WAN port of the ASUS. Depending on what you want/need you can either turn the WiFi on the Actiontec on or off. Then just the STBs will be connected to your Actiontec and everything else will connect to the ASUS. If you turn the Actiontec's Wifi on you can have a secure guest network since it will be on its own subnet with no access to the devices connected to the LAN on the ASUS.

The double NAT setup has worked fine for me for eighteen months. Tried connecting my ASUS router direct to the OTN and not using the Actiontec and saw no improvement in performance. The advantage of having the Actiontec in place is if you have an Internet problem Verizon will help you resolve it. So in the case of a problem you will have to reconnect you Actiontec.

The primary disadvantage is that you probably won't be able to set up a VPN server on your Lan for secure remote access.

 

[JNeim]

Thanks for your response Captain! And no I have not made any changes on the Actiontec at all besides turning off the wifi.

And also my set top boxes are set to 192.168.1.100 & 192.168.1.103

 

[Ferdowsi]

I had them change over to Ethernet ~ 5 yrs ago so I could use my own edge device. Like @CaptainSTX mentioned, I was unable to get support for losing connectivity to my DVR remotely (from the public side) at some point. I tried forwarding ports their device had but it did not help for long. However, I do not recall losing my data connection.
I wanted to lose the Actiontec completely in an effort to increase my VPN speed and gave up.

I ended up w/ a similar topo as @CaptainSTX as well but I disabled their WiFi and use another older 4MB router for guests. Even disabled the SSID, Pre-Shared Key and other config. info are sent to them/my online account.
I did not try setting my device in their DMZ. Also do not know if their DynamicDNS setup works. Maybe you wanna give it a try?

Firewall Settings > Yes (confirmation) > DMZ Host: ASUS device
Firewall Settings > Static NAT: ASUS device
Advanced > Yes (confirmation) > DynamicDNS

I do use the LAN ports for DMZ stuff. I configured their router to give (most of) my devices a specific IP, instead of statically assigning them.

Advanced > IP Address Distribution > Connection List > New Static Connection

and map my MAC addresses to the IP's I wanna use. I started from .110

I did other things but they are beyond the scope of this thread. Finally, backup here:

Advanced > Configuration File > Save

Something was gunked up with the guide and they/we need to do a hard reset so the backup came in handy after that.

On another (irrelevant) note- it would be nice if they would save the key (to decrypt file system) from my external HDD so I could download it if/when I need to change STB's and not lose whatever was recorded.