1. enter your account name (may also be called host name) and domain name. these parameters may be necessary to access your isp’s services such as mail or news servers. if you leave the domain name field blank, the firewall will attempt to learn the domain automatically from the isp. if this is not successful, you may need to enter it manually.
2. if you know that your isp does not automatically transmit dns addresses to the firewall during login, select “use these dns servers” and enter the ip address of your isp’s primary dns server. if a secondary dns server address is available, enter it also.
dns servers are required to perform the function of translating an internet name such as www.netgear.com to a numeric ip address. for a fixed ip address configuration, you must obtain dns server addresses from your isp and enter them manually here. you should reboot your pcs after configuring the firewall for these settings to take effect.
3. the router’s mac address is the ethernet mac address that will be used by the firewall on the internet port.
if your isp allows access from only one specific computer’s ethernet mac address, select “use this mac address.” the firewall will then capture and use the mac address of the computer that you are now using. you must be using the one computer that is allowed by the isp. otherwise, you can type in a mac address.
some isps will register the ethernet mac address of the network interface card in your computer when your account is first opened. they will then only accept traffic from the mac address of that computer. this feature allows your firewall to masquerade as that computer by using its mac address.
4. click apply to save your settings.
5. click test to test your internet connection. if the netgear website does not appear within one minute, refer to chapter 8, “troubleshooting”.