What does "Fast Forwarding" do on a USG40?

xsentinel
xsentinel Posts: 18  Freshman Member
First Comment
in Security

  • I have a USG40 that has worked well for a long time, but recently my internet speed has been increased and I noticed that the USG40 is not fast enough. I get around 150mb/s through the USG40 but if I connect directly to the modem I get over 300mb/s, so the USG is obviously the problem.

I do not have any of the UTM features enabled such as anti-virus or anything like that. I have never had any subscription services enabled.

I did find a setting that seems to help:
configuration->system->advanced->fast forwarding

If I enable "Fast Forwarding" I get full speed, but I do not know exactly what that setting does so I am afraid to use it. Obviously it is bypassing something but I don't know exactly what or how it effects my security.
Can someone please explain what exactly this setting bypasses and does not bypass so I can make a better decision to use it or not?
Many thanks.

All Replies

  • Zyxel_Melen
    Zyxel_Melen Posts: 2,409  Zyxel Employee
    Zyxel Certified Network Engineer Level 1 - Switch Zyxel Certified Network Administrator - Switch Zyxel Certified Network Administrator - Nebula Zyxel Certified Sales Associate

    Hi @xsentinel,

    Please reference the below screenshot from User's Guide:

    image.png

    Hope it helps.

    Zyxel Melen

    Share your feedback through our survey, make your voice heard, and win a WiFi 7 AP!


  • xsentinel
    xsentinel Posts: 18  Freshman Member
    First Comment

    Thank you. I did see that in the help file but unfortunately that does not answer my question. Or at least I do not completely understand that because that is from a technical perspective and not quite what I was looking for.

    What I want to know is what is disabled or bypassed by enabling this setting? Is it only UTM stuff and some logging, or is there more? Are there firewall or security things that are bypassed such as SPI or something important like that?

    The reason I ask is because I do not have anti-virus or anything like that enabled, so if that is all that is bypassed then I am OK with that as I don't use it anyway.

    Thank you.

  • PeterUK
    PeterUK Posts: 3,389  Guru Member
    100 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary

    "Fast Forwarding" more or less makes it like a home router so things like firewall, NAT will work but other stuff like BWM and VPN will not from what know.

    There is a logging you can disable without enabling "Fast Forwarding" that can make the USG40 faster.
    Monitor > system status > traffic Statistics uncheck Collect Statistics

  • xsentinel
    xsentinel Posts: 18  Freshman Member
    First Comment

    Thanks for that answer. I appreciate it but, it doesn't really completely answer my question. The problem I have is that the manual says that it turns of or bypasses things "such as" and then lists them. But it doesn't actually list say what all it bypasses. So enabling that setting "may" compromise my security … or it might not. That's what I need to know.

    If all it does is bypass the UTM features that I'm not using anyway then that's fine because I'm not using those features anyway so no loss of security there. But it seems to me that there must be more because I am not using those features already and I have the slow down. So it would seem to me that bypassing them should not result in any improvement. Therefore it must be doing more and I need to know what exactly that "more" is before I feel comfortable with it.

    Also, I did disable the logging setting you stated above and that did result in improved speed but still not the same as enabling Fast Forwarding, so there still must be more to it than that.

    Thank you though. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this because it will help immeasurably.

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