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I'm about to get dsl, and would like to get a firewall/router for it? Any recommendations or criticisms of certain models or brands? Any recommendations on places to read up on such? Just going to manufacturer sites is giving me a headache. Thanks!!

Get a PIX firewall, they are pretty good. Or just build your own Linux firewall.

There are many router brands, you need to be more specific. Do you need wireless? How many ports? Speed? WHAT DO YOU NEED!

You can get Cisco 2500 series routers pretty cheap on ebay. Just check that out.

If you are talking about those little boxes that people buy also called \"routers\" that they put in there homes then you should say so.

I'm using the Zoom X6 -- works well for me.

Edit: note that the X6 is an all-in-one solution (ie. it's a DSL modem as well)

Linksys BEFSX41 here, but linksys NAT routers have gone downhill in the last few years.

linksys rv082, best router ive ever owned

Wired network, using AT&T as the provider. I'll have to check and see what are the capabilities of their ADSL modem. I'm thinking it probably does not have a hardware firewall, so I am interested in adding that. When I upgrade my laptop in the not too distant future, I would like to be able to plug it in also, mostly for network file transfer. All under Win XP.

I asked the neighborhood tech guy at work and he told me about his linksys wired firewall router with a wireless access point; but it's a couple of years old. I checked out some of the linksys wired versions @newegg, which had generally good reviews, but enough indications of firmware udpate troubles and lack of tech support that it gave me pause to reconsider linksys. Since I am teh network n00b, I'd rather not get in too far over my head.

edit - Looks like AT&T supplies a Siemens model 4100 as the modem

Yes, the Linksys WRT54G V5 Really Is a Lousy Router

Hey Grendel. Good article. There is a great link at the end that rates all the wireless routers. Should be useful to you dissent:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/lans_rout ... index.html

linksys rv082, best router ive ever owned

I agree. Netgear's stuff has been really bad to me recently, so I replaced them with rv082s and they're AWESOME. Don't go with Linksys' consumer products, go with the small business ones.

~Jer

ccb056 wrote:linksys rv082, best router ive ever owned

wowie - $266.99 at newegg and only nine reviews; again firmware seems to be an issue there.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that linksys might spend more time on its business line, but there are still a lot of negative reviews out there.

Thanks all for the links to Tom's Hardware. Is there a "for dummies" link somewhere that explains what all of these numbers mean??

Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to try to get the Linksys BEFSX41. If it turns up fubar, I may try the rv042 as a cost compromise over the rv082.



Pray for me !!!

Well, my BEFSX41 works reasonably well most of the time. After a few days solid torrenting I have to reset the router because my steady download speed drops from 70k/sec to 40k/sec. Pause the torrent, pull the plug on the router, wait 1 second, plug the power back in, wait 10 seconds for the router to boot up, resume torrent, download back to 70k/sec. One of these days I am going to build a really low wattage PC with dual LAN and dump both my linksys routers for a 16 port switch and a router on a usb memory key flavor of linux.

Hey Krom, are you using the most recent firmware (1.52.10, I think)?

Nah, using a much older 1.45.7 build, gave up looking for updates when linksys didn't put one out for over two years.

I'll try the new 1.52.10 since I have a backup of the 1.45.7 version, if the new version works any better, or at least doesnt work any worse I'll hold on to it.

im liking my WRT54GL.

ironically, I have no wireless devices.

anyone here take an older pc and turn it into a dedicated firewall?
If you have, how does it compare to a dedicated box?

Generally, an older PC as a router is massively more powerful then a dedicated box, and far more flexible since the options available in those NAT router builds of linux are far more extensive. In most versions I looked over there were options for quality of service, packet prioritization, bandwidth shaping, any kind of filtering, logging and firewalling you could think of, port forwarding and triggering with way more then just 10 slots available. Far more intelligent SPI firewalls, you name it.

Krom wrote:Generally, an older PC as a router is massively more powerful then a dedicated box, and far more flexible since the options available in those NAT router builds of linux are far more extensive. In most versions I looked over there were options for quality of service, packet prioritization, bandwidth shaping, any kind of filtering, logging and firewalling you could think of, port forwarding and triggering with way more then just 10 slots available. Far more intelligent SPI firewalls, you name it.

at the cost of additonal electrical consumption.

And maintenance. There's a far greater risk of hardware failure or misconfiguration in a PC than there is in a dedicated, solid-state box.

That said, I ran a P3 500 with Slackware 9 and 2 NIC cards as a router for over a year with no problems. There are far more user-friendly solutions out there (Smoothwall, etc.) but Slack got the job done fine. I took down the box when I moved and got a router with built-in SPI firewall.

Well I'm now in Linksys router over DSL hell.



I can connect fine thru the dsl modem, but when I put in the router I can't load a web page. Have spent several hours already over the last couple days between sbc and linksys phone help. They told me that I had to put the dsl modem in bridge mode and then run PPPoE on the router - the last linksys guy tried to tell me it was a hardware problem on my pc, since I could ping 192.168.1.1 and 4.2.2.2 just fine, but still couldn't load a web page in IE6. I think he's FOS, since I can connect with the same hardware just fine without the router. I'm either missing something right in front of me, or I'm getting jerked around by linkys.

I have a headache.

lol....your pain was our pain.

I just got our computers back on the internet through the router through the speedstream 4100 modem.

Put the modem into bridged mode.

On your router, tell it to use PPPoe and enter your user name & password. Don't forget to include the @sbcglobal.net or whatever your email is.

Set your routers LAN address to 192.168.1.1 with a subnet of 255.255.255.0

Your computer can be set as obtain IP address automagically or you can assign a static IP as we did. Just make sure you set your default gateway to 192.168.1.1 and copy your DNS servers over as well.

Do a ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew and that should cover it.

We also tried unsuccessfully to connect with the modem handling PPPoe to absolutely no avail. It might work for a few minutes, but then drop the connection after a period of time.

We also had a weird glitch where it would connect but uploads were very slow, like <1kbps.

Looks like bridged mode, or directly connected to the PC is the only options for the 4100.

Ahh yes PPPoE, the thorn in so many peoples side from DSL. I feel lucky that my DSL does not use PPPoE, just plug in and DHCP gives you an IP.

Based on Krom's point, I read this

... By making high speed access easier to use for end consumers ...

Ha! roflmaopimp

Ok Supersheep, all of this sounds eerily familiar.
(/me takes another long drag on the air joint)
So tell me, when you're done, do you see the Internet light come on on the dsl modem, or does it stay out?

What would be the address ranges for a static ip?

Are you using a BEFSX41 v2 router?

I tried to do a firmware upgrade from 1.50.18 to 1.52.10, but it crapped out and didn't complete. I double checked and I did have the right bin file.##@!*&$*%#$^&*(%$#@ linksys!!!

Man, I am so gonna have a couple of beers if I can get this to work.

When I plug the DSL modem into the phone jack and nothing else, I will get a steady DSL green light after a little while. If you don't have this, there may be a device on your phone line that is not filtered. Alarm system maybe?

If you do get a steady green for the DSL then that part is good to go.

We use 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.101. Nothing really special here except you need to use an IP set aside for LAN use.

Yep...That's our router. BEFSX41 ver 2.

If the firmware upgrade didn't take, you may have fubared your router. Not sure. If you can get online at all, check to see what you can do if anything for a bad firmware upgrade. My guess is that the router is hosed but I don't know for sure.

Don't use the \"upgrade firmware\" option in the routers config page, it doesnt work, track down and use the tiny little tftp.exe utility that linksys used to use for flashing the firmware, it works. If you can't find the Tftp.exe tool, I can upload it to a webspace for you.

I'll try that. On the Linksys downloads page they called it the \"Optional Upgrade Utility\", filename tftp%2C0.exe. Yet the linksys tech had me use the \"update firmware\" on the administration page. Ok, let's see if this works ....


hmmm... and I checked the firmware they are calling 1.52.10, and the one I just dl'd has a \"%\" character where the version i got a couple days ago had a comma.

%2C is the URL encoding for the comma.

heyhey - just flashed to 1.52.10 using the tftp utility and it now seems to be working. seems like I have internet access through the router with AV and ZA also enabled.


Let's see how it holds up ...
(/me crosses fingers and toes)