BrianDagan.com

Here’s 3 hours of mine and another Engineer’s lives that we’ll never get back… so if you do run across this configuration, this should save you some time.  Here’s the scenario:

You have:

1 x SonicWALL TZ210

4 x SonicPoint wireless access points

1 x PoE switch, shared with both the SonicPoints and a few wired LAN clients

Due to having been completely locked out of all interfaces and all protocols by the previous IT company (morons) and because we didn’t have a console cable anywhere nearby (d’oh!), we had to factory reset the SonicWALL TZ210.  It was only at that point that we realized that the SonicWALL TZ210 also had four (4) SonicPoints that used to be bound to it (thanks to correct labeling in the MySonicWALL portal).  We attempted to get the TZ210 to recognize the SonicPoints (we even factory reset a SonicPoint), but they never showed up in the web UI:

So, here’s your problem… the SonicPoints will not talk to the TZ210 unless they are plugged into an interface designated as a WLAN (wireless LAN) interface.

If you were setting this up from scratch, you would want to design your network in such a way that the SonicPoints were on one PoE switch attached to an X2-X6 interface, and the LAN clients were on a different non-PoE switch connected to the X0 (LAN) interface.  You would then designate the interface to which your PoE switch and SonicPoints are connected as being in the WLAN zone.  Here’s a good site documenting that process: http://www.brandontek.com/networking/solution-to-your-sonicpoint-wlan-woes/

…but, since we didn’t have two switches, we were up a creek.  Oh, and did I mention that putting a SonicPoint into standalone mode is not supported by SonicWALL?  Major bummer, dude!  So, these were our choices:

If we plugged the PoE switch with the SonicPoints and the wired LAN clients to X0, the SonicPoints would not be recognized.

If we plugged the PoE switch with the SonicPoints into an X2-X6 interface which was designated as a WLAN, then the wired LAN clients would not be able to get out of that interface to the Internet.

One SonicWALL case and one undocumented setting later (correction: the Murphy is strong today (Friday the 13^th?)… see the last paragraph for the link to the KB article), it’s working.  Here’s how:

1) Log into the TZ210, and, once logged in, substitute main.html in the address bar for diag.html, which brings you to this page:

2) Click the “Internal Settings” button, scroll down to the Wireless Settings section, and check the box for “Enable local wireless zone traffic to bypass gateway firewalling,” and then be sure to scroll back up and hit Apply:

    Don’t forget:

3) Hit the “Close” button on the diag.html page, which then takes you back to the normal interface… go to Network > Zones and edit your WLAN zone to match the following settings:

    Now, on the Wireless tab, you’ll have a new checkbox:

    Don’t forget:

4) Now, change an interface (in this case, X2) to the WLAN zone, and plug the uplink from your PoE switch (which, again, has the SonicPoints and some wired LAN clients attached) into said interface you just configured as follows:

…and Murphy’s law states that as soon as I put this together, I’d find a KB article that SonicWALL didn’t mention, even when I’d asked tech support, “Is there some sort of article or walkthrough I can follow?”  http://www.fuzeqna.com/sonicwallkb/consumer/kbdetail.asp?kbid=8334&formaction=faqalert

Anyway, their KB article doesn’t actually bridge the new interface to the X0 interface… mine does… and it still works.  Nyah.

Hope this helps save you some time when configuring non-optimal SonicWALL-based networks :-)