[RndTbl] network interruptions need solution

[c0l0nelFlagg]

I have home network with dedicated firewall box (smoothwall) that 
assigns reserved IP addresses based on MAC addresses of any network machine.

I need to find a way to configure things so that when I lose the RED www 
inet input connection to said firewall it doesn't hang up normal home 
network use by other workstations.

Right now as long as inet is there all works normally however if I drop 
the public inet input everything seems to hang up.  It seems to be that 
specifying the firewall box as dhcp server as well as gateway is OK as 
long as it can have full normal dns access to the outside world but gets 
bogged down when the outside world dis appears and it has to rely on the 
gateway as a local caching dns server which does not appear to be 
working right.

tried to use bind9 at one time but that ground this to a total halt for 
some reason; anyone have a link to good solution? thanks