🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 11:50:12 -0400, William <tins5746@bellsouth.net>
wrote:
> You've given me more information than I was given on the phone.
> 
> I have a SonicWALL firewall and wasn't asking if they could tell me
> how to set it up. I was wanting to know whether hardware firewalls
> can be used.

But that is really vague, and more to the point since you are asking a
tech support person, can they support it or give you any kind of
assurances? What do they know about it? Is there any chance it might
interfere with your connection or cause problems to the network? How can
they give definitive answers to devices they have no knowledge of? They
can't. The best they could say is 'maybe', and most people don't like
that answer. So from their perspective, as official representatives of
your ISP, they can't take a chance and tell you something that might
cause you trouble, no matter how remote a chance that might be. 

Just a fer instance, at one time there was a bug in the Sonicwall
firmware relating to DHCP (this is before PPPoE came along), that caused
a continual request for a new lease from the BSIS server. To the point
it was considered abuse of the network. So you could have had your
account canceled in this probably rare set of circumstances. And what
would the stock answer be on this? "Well, sir, don't use unsupported
devices, and you'll be just peachy". 

But, as long as you can handle your own troubleshooting and
installation, you can use any device you want (my opinion, not theirs). 


-- 
Hal Burgiss