topic Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work in Broadband & Landline

Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work

andyd20duckcom — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:46:31 GMT

Hello everyone, I have just moved from BT to EE. Over the weekend BT collected their router which I really wanted to keep as iit had more configurable settings than the EE device, unfortunately the wanted £50 for it. Anyway, the EE router is installed and is working, we have phone calls and broadband, but the EE router doesn't appear to be blocking traffic as suggested.

I have a pFsense firewall behind the EE router in the DMZ, the same as I did with BT. the pFsense has had to have the alarms disabled as the EE router isn't blocking ports. The EE router is using its default DHCP settings.

On the screen it states:

Can someone confirm if it is supposed to block these ports by default even if the device is in the DMZ, or have I been protected in the past by the BT router blocking unsolicited data to the DMZ even when it wasn't supposed to?

21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 137, 138, 139, 143, 443, 445, 548, 587, 993, 995, 1433, 1701, 1723, 3306, 5432, 8008, 8443

The logs have items such as these:

I have tried it another way by using port forwarding but that seems to do the same.

Appreciate the forums thoughts on this, it does look like the DMZ hasn't got any firewall protection at all even though the text on the screen indicates it has, or the data wouldn't be reaching the pFsense (192.168.1.1). Once I know I can make arrangements to accommodate. And for some reason my post has been marked as Spam! Go Figure.

Re: Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work

andyd20duckcom — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:49:42 GMT

On the screen it states:

21, 22, 23, 25, 53, 80, 110, 137, 138, 139, 143, 443, 445, 548, 587, 993, 995, 1433, 1701, 1723, 3306, 5432, 8008, 8443

The logs have items such as these:

I have tried it another way by using port forwarding but that seems to do the same.

Re: Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work

XRaySpeX — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 21:00:23 GMT

@andyd20duckcom : Your previous thread is still here. I've merged them.

Re: Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work

WillKirk — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 23:00:52 GMT

So, I’m sure I’m over simplifying here but:

You put your third party firewall in the DMZ and 1) are surprised it’s receiving all the traffic despite virtually putting it in front of the router with an in-built firewall and 2) are turning off alarms because your firewall is receiving traffic I can only assume you haven’t blocked on the firewall you want to use… or have you? If you have, I’m even more confused because it then sounds like what you are trying is working.

You put your third party firewall in front of your router to block certain traffic, or let certain traffic through, into your network. Not really a surprise then surely that you can see all the not-yet-blocked traffic, and that it’s not yet blocked before you have blocked it?

To my knowledge BT/EE do not ‘firewall’ traffic before it gets to your router unless you have some kind of parental controls activated somewhere (never needed them so never used them). If it did, then people needing that traffic would never receive it to use Port Forwarding and the such; it would be stopped before it got to you, leading to many angry people.

So sounds to me like it’s working as it should. If not then I am missing something.

Re: Does the EE SmartHub (Black) Firewall work

andyd20duckcom — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 06:13:17 GMT

Thanks for checking this for me, I expected it was working correctly for a device in the DMZ.

Appreciate you taking the time to run through what I was seeing, and that my firewall behind the router is performing the task it was designed for.