ZyXEL Communications P-334W User Manual

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Prestige 334W User’s Guide 
 
Triangle Route                                                                                                                               K-1 
Appendix K 
 Triangle Route 
The Ideal Setup  
When the firewall is on, your Prestige acts as a secure gateway between your LAN and the Internet. In an 
ideal network topology, all incoming and outgoing network traffic passes through the Prestige to protect your 
LAN against attacks. 
 
Diagram K-1 Ideal Setup 
The “Triangle Route” Problem 
A traffic route is a path for sending or receiving data packets between two Ethernet devices. Some companies 
have more than one alternate route to one or more ISPs. If the LAN and ISP(s) are in the same subnet, the 
“triangle route” problem may occur. The steps below describe the “triangle route” problem.  
Step 1. 
A computer on the LAN initiates a connection by sending out a SYN packet to a receiving server 
on the WAN. 
Step 2. 
The Prestige reroutes the SYN packet through Gateway on the LAN to the WAN.  
Step 3. 
The reply from the WAN goes directly to the computer on the LAN without going through the 
Prestige.  
As a result, the Prestige resets the connection, as the connection has not been acknowledged.