Anyone use a router?

[Harry Kuhman]

HK: you say you have used several routers. Have you used LinkSys? What brand/model do you recommend?

My first router was a Linksys, the 4 port BEFSR41 (Be careful you don't get one of those one port deals like the one sold on ebay). It did what it was supposed to. Cost about $100 at the time, and that was after careful shopping, retail was more.

I've had a chance to test and use a NexLand SOHO router. It worked great, although it was ugly as hell (If you're not straight you might like it). There were promises that future software would have a feature to support Netmeeting, but I don't know if that ever materialized. Overall the software seemed a lot more flexiable and user friendly than the Linksys.

I helped a friend set up her d-Link. The d-link was chosen simply on price ($19 or $29 after rebate while the Linksys was still around $100). It works great. Again, many features were easier and more user friendly than the Linksys. For example, to clone your MAC address on my Linksys you have to determine your MAC address, write it down, go to the web page on the router for changing the MAC address and enter the new MAC address. On the d-link there is a web page button that simply says Clone MAC Address. You press it, it knows what MAC address you have from your packet and uses it. A simple difference, but there are lots of little things like this where the Linksys user needs to be a little more technical than the users of other routers.

I got a Belkin wireless router as part of a deal when I got a notebook this year. Hunk of crap. Belkin does not respond to support email, and the routher has real support issues. No firmware updates have ever been posted. My personal view is that I'll never buy a Belkin router again. Went back to using my Linksys after a few days.

I bought a 4 port SMC wireless router. $29 after rebates at CompUSA. Works great. Many features that the Linksys lacks. I'm connected through it now.

Of the routers I've tried, all work fine with Linux and let you set up the router with a Linux browser except the Belkin (which seemed to have DHCP problems with Knoppix along with it's other problems!).

I've never seen a good feature comparison article that covers the many available routers. If you do come across one in your research, please post back here a link for it. I'll try to give you a quick overview of the differences I noted. To be fair, let me say that I've never flashed my Linksys with any of the upgrades since I got it, but I have looked at the change lists for those upgrades and never seen anything I though I would use to make it worth upgrading the firmware.

The one area that I did see that the Linksys was better at than the other routers I looked at was logging. There is a web interface log that is very minimal, but there is a feature that lets you send log information to another address on the local network. If you do this and run logging software on another system you can collect better logs. The Linksys sofware is (or at least was) available on their website, although it's very hard to find. They didn't include it on the CD that came with the router or even tell you how to find it. This software is still pretty simple, and there is at least one other package out that that does a great job (but is not free). As far as I know all available logging software runs on Windows, not Linux. None of the other routers I've looked at do anywhere near as nice of a job of logging as the Linksys.

On the other hand, the other routers generally are cleaner to set up, in some cases more flexiable, and have some neat features that the Linksys lacks. Some routers (If I remember right the d-link had this, as well as the Nexland and even the Belkin) let you configure a lot of known services and applications simply by name rather than by port addresses. The SMC has a special feature that can open a range of ports when it sees an application has started to use a particular triger port (this might even let me use Netmeeting behind the firewall if I knew what ports I needed to set up, but that's still the elusive Holy Grail of NAT router use for me).

Most of all of the others had provisions that let you make sure that the same computer would keep getting the same IP address with DHCP (like a DHCP lease, where you can control how long it takes for the lease to expire, including never). This is important when you want to route incoming traffic to a particular system. The Linksys lacked this and I had to actually disable DHCP on several of my systems and assign them permanent IP addresses. This worked, but was a real pain when I started testing other routers and was out of the question for the notebook, which I wanted to be able to take other places and have work by DHCP without having to constantly go into the control panel and change network settings.

A few of the routers (I think the d-link, I know it's in the SMC and even the Belkin), have a slick feature that lets you control access by time of day and week. This might be very handy for a parent who wanted to impose some Internet access restrictions on certain (or all) computers in the house. This is not available on my Linksys.

Overall, other than the Belkin, any of the routers I've looked at do the job, although features vary from device to device. Unless I've touched on something that you particularly want here or you can find a good article that compares the various offerings feature by feature, I don't know of a good way to know what router is best for you other than to try them. The Linksys is certainly the best know and I expect the best seller, but other routers are certainly good and have features the Linksys lacks, I wouldn't buy the Linksys based on name only if there was a big price difference with an SMC or a d-link. (unless it was in an office situation where I wanted to do the logging and was willing to dedicate a special logging computer, in which case the Linksys far outshines the rest).

As far as models go, just shop price and features. I've seen some rebate deals on ones that include a built-in print server. Some people might think they need that, I'm happier with just sharing my printers with other computers on the network. Check you port count, some routers have two, the Linksys you found on ebay (second of 3) has only 1!, while some may have as many as 8, but 4 is by far the most common. All can be extended by adding switches and even hubs, but I wouldn't buy a 3 port unit if I knew I had 4 computers in my house that I wanted to wire in and I didn't have a switch available. On the other hand, I wouldn't pay a lot extra for an 8 port unit when I know I can always add an inexpensive switch and get the same or better functionality. I've seen some mention of VPN support in some routers; this should be investigated if you have a current need for it. However, while Linksys has some routers that they charge extra for because of VPN support, I have a friend who has been using VPN to get into his work fine on a simple Linksys BEFSR41, so I don't know what you are paying extra for. I've also seen Linksys advertising routers witha built-in "firewall" that they charge extra for. I have no idea what this is about, any of these routers will server as a firewall. It's my understanding that even the basic BEFSR41 does stateful inspection; I've never found a good explination of what additional security you might get if you pay for a Linksys router that Marketing as added the firewall claim to.

Good luck in your search. Please post back what you end up with.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, it looks like the Linksys BEFSR41 Cable/DSL Router is the one to get. However, you seem to like SMC and d-link, right? Let me look into some of these before I commit....

Thanx!

[desire]

I'm glad I "stumbled" on to this thread, some very good insights. Setting up a router is my next project I decided to go with the SMC. Up here in Canada they can be had for around $50 ($25 after the rebate) Although I always assume the price without the rebate (worked for a large chain and know about rebates all too well) Even so $50 is still pretty cheap, actually just checked it's $42 no rebate. If I can get this thing to work then pretty well anyone can get it to work.

[Hunkah]

Staples had the D-Link 4port Routers on for $10.00 CAN on boxing day! I missed the sale or I would have bought 25 of them. Check out Staples first, the D-Links have a great price right now, plus there is a mail in rebate till Jan 5th.

[Duffin444]

If you do have an old computer just sitting around and doing nothing right now it might very-well be worth it just to fix that into a simple router/firewall/print server/VPN endpoint and/or SSH endpoint/HTTP proxy for caching and/or ad blocking and anonymizing. The D-link/Linksys/Belkin/Netgear/SMC routers are an easy way to go, unfortunately they have no real firewall ability at all. Most if not all the consumer level solutions I have seen simply claim they have a firewall because they do not offer a *direct* path to your computer (NAT). While this does take you off of the "easy hit" list, it is not a real firewall and is vulnerable to a number of attacks and circumventions.

Another thing to consider is that without one of the D-link/Linksys/Belkin/Netgear/SMC you would have to leave a computer on all the time (and this is kinda a drag if you are not interested in any of the extra features listed above) you do not have to use this "always on" computer just for routing. Most cable companies and connections do not issue a new IP address very frequently; my IP address changes about once or twice a year. Because of this you can quite reliably sail on over to a website like GoDaddy.com and get a domain name for less than ten bucks a year and host a website on your "always on" computer. Why stop with a web server? You could add an FTP server, a VNC server, a DNS server, and a Mail server Suddenly that "router" becomes a power-house of portability and usability. Add PHP support to your install of Apache(web server) and you could host a forum (phpBB) that looks just like this for your calculus class. You could host downloads of sizes that are limited only by your hard drive capacity, and host all the web content you want. With an SSH server installed you could securely access any of the computers on your LAN from anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection. All of this capability for only the cost of an old junk computer with two network cards a switch and the electricity it costs to run it! And best of all... it is an adventure that has a multitude of possibilities and potential to expand ones' own knowledge and all thanks to Linux and the Open Source community.

If you do decide to go with a firmware router then, as far as deciding what router to get by what company, most routers are comparable to each other except that the newer routers tend to have a better application layer interface with Winblows (UPnP). And you might look on the routers homepage and see what the release cycle is for the firmware (internal software for the router). Good companies that have good support tend to have a better update cycle for their products.

Cheers,
Duffin

[Harry Kuhman]

I agree with many of your points. There are even some other things you didn't mention that you could do with a home brew router that the NAT appliances don't offer. But if you're not after these goals, I still think a NAT appliance is a better choice. The original post in the thread described a situation that was right for a network appliance.

Your ISP may only change your IP address a couple of times a year, but others of us are not so lucky. My DSL provider changes mine at least weekly, if not more often. Users should know how their own provider works rather than to expect a fairly static address.

If you do decide to go with a firmware router then, as far as deciding what router to get by what company, most routers are comparable to each other except that the newer routers tend to have a better application layer interface with Winblows (UPnP).

True, but then this brings up the whole religious war of "do you want UPnP in the first place?". I certainly don't, it's the main reason I never falshed my UPnP free Linksys router in the first place. Fortunately, the SMC has a feature to disable it. UPnP is a serious security risk, some of us don't want a "feature" that lets Bill Gates bypass the rules we have set up.

[Harry Kuhman]

For what it's worth, there is a Netgear 802.11b wireless router at newegg.com for $32 after rebate with free shipping. If you look at the pictures you see that it also has 4 wired ports. I have not used a netgear so can't make a recomendaion either way, but it's price looks right (if you want the 802.11b option).

Here's the link:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...1&searchdepa=1

[Harry Kuhman]

Starting Sunday, OfficeMax has a 4 port d-link router for $19.99 after rebate.

[Harry Kuhman]

CompUSA has a so called "Unadvertised special" for a Wireless router (802.11b) for $19.99, no rebate involved. Looks like a "store brand", I have no idea who makes it. In my experience wireless routers generally also have 4 wired ports available, seems worth checking out.

http://www.compusa.com/AdProducts/ht...04/1_4_pg1.pdf

[Harry Kuhman]

Just incase A. Jorge hasn't made a choice yet, this week at CompUSA you can get a d-link wired router for $19.99 after rebates (and that also includes an extra PCI NIC in the bundle) or a d-link router with 4 ports but also 802.11b wireless capability for ten bucks more. Page 12 of the new flyer. Here's the link: http://compusa.dailyshopper.com/inde...ircularid=2884