Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Double Access Inquiry

I am not a networking expert and cannot seem to find an answer to my situation. I own a small business (too small to hire an IT guy so I am it), an auto parts store and am wondering if its possible to connect to two firewalls at the same time. Ill try to explain how our network is set up. ISP>Modem>Firewall 1>Switch>APs/Devices & Firewall 2>Switch & Server>Devices.

A little background, I do not have enough wrinkles in my brain to understand everything network related but have a general understanding and can research or lookup most things you suggest. I also do not have the financing to afford high end equipment so the best we were able to do is Ubiquiti's Unifi. I am familiar with navigating the Unifi controller and am just wondering if this can be done. A simple point me in the right direction is good enough for me. Best way to learn is to jump in and start doing. Thanks.

Basically the software for our inventory ordering and parts lookup for vehicles is controlled by our parent company and any computer that needs to look up or order parts must go through firewall 2 and the server that is provided by them; unfortunately, their firewall has multiple restrictions on it that won't allow for simple things like credit card readers or VOIP to connect through it (thus they are connected through firewall 1). Is it possible to set up something where firewall 2 is behind a vlan (say V2) and everything is connected to the same switch that is on V1. This would need to be so where V1 can access and see V2 but not the other way around. I am thinking of it this was so I can use wireless computers for inventory management and have the access points on V1 but they can still use the parent company's software. I could just install APs behind firewall 2 but that then means I will have to have 2 ssids to connect to for simple things like emails access (also blocked on firewall 2). I have 4 workstation computers that we purchased from said parent company that also receive their updates from them but cannot access competitor websites for price comparison (these are all ethernet lines to the switch behind firewall 2). I am an independently owned store and our parent company prices are way to high so I have to compare with competitors to keep our pricing low enough to compete.

If this is outside the realm of this community, please let me know so I can take it elsewhere. Furthermore, the way I am currently getting around this is by having wifi adapters on the workstations and using ethernet. When we need to look up parts or place orders, we simple turn off the wifi in windows. When we need to check prices or emails and such, we simply unplug the ethernet cable and use the wifi.



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