Recomendations for a new Router...

[drozwood90]

ok, so, problem at the house, my router fried...

Not too bad, I think I've had the thing for over 9 years...

So, what is the going thought on a good router?

Pete_c, I'd be interested in your thoughts, as you had a neat setup with either m0n0wall, or something like that.

I'm ok with putting in a PC, or a VirtualBox to handle this...but, I think a little LinkSys, SMSc, or Belkin would do better (so I don't totally goof up the wife / etc. when I reboot the server). I'd also like to use it to get Wifi access...

I'm thinking $50-$200 (depending on options).

--Dan

 

[damage]

i'm partial to tomato firmware running on a compatible router http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

 

[electron]

I REALLY like m0n0wall (I have a couple of them running, with uptimes exceeding multiple years), and would highly recommend if if you have an old PC laying around. It doesn't even require a hard drive, so it won't consume much energy. I also like DD-WRT, but it won't offer as many options, so it really depends on what features you are after.

 

[Ira]

After years of using Linksys products, I've been migrating over to Netgear ProSafe (Business product line) devices. These devices just seem more substantial than the plastic consumer-grade stuff out there. Depending on the device, they may be a little over the price range you want.

 

[pete_c]

Impressed with what I read about mOnOwall.

Personally like Smoothwall. I've been using it for years now. It'll run on anything. Same about uptime. It never breaks. Lately built a couple of Smoothwall FW's in Netier XL2000 boxes with CF drives. You could do the same with mOnOwall. You could hang the AP off a third interface on Smoothwall creating a more secure wireless network or just use the FW built into DDWRT between your wired network and wireless network. With SW you already have Snort. If you add DansGuardian (proactive web filtering) you can do even more.

I like DD-WRT for my WLAN AP but not to use it as a FW. I feel the same though about the big box off the shelf products. I put a temporary DD-WRT setup in FL and pushed it a bit on the ethernet wired side. Throughput suffered.

DD-WRT does have some nice features. A few years back created a WLAN bridge, used the FW part of it and QOS for providing the neighbors with internet access. It worked.

Read about each one.

 

[Rupp]

I REALLY like m0n0wall (I have a couple of them running, with uptimes exceeding multiple years), and would highly recommend if if you have an old PC laying around. It doesn't even require a hard drive, so it won't consume much energy. I also like DD-WRT, but it won't offer as many options, so it really depends on what features you are after.

Dan,
How does a software fire wall replace a wireless router or am I completely missing the point?

 

[electron]

m0n0wall is a version of FreeBSD optimized for tiny embedded appliances and PC's. Every hardware firewall runs software, so as long as the OS has been optimized/designed for this kind of task, it will do really well. I have 3 m0n0's at work, 2 of them with 8+ interfaces, used in an environment where performance matters (VoIP, etc.), plus 1 at home, with multiple interface, using an old P2 266mhz system. It's a cheap way of getting a multi-interface firewall, while also supporting useful enterprise features such as VPN (both pptp and ipsec), captive portal and much more.

There is also a fork, pfSense, which adds a lot more features to m0n0wall, but does require a hard drive/flash drive.

One thing to keep in mind is that with companies offering real high speed internet (FIOS), a typical consumer router might not even cut it anymore (performance wise).

 

[Rupp]

m0n0wall is a version of FreeBSD optimized for tiny embedded appliances and PC's. Every hardware firewall runs software, so as long as the OS has been optimized/designed for this kind of task, it will do really well. I have 3 m0n0's at work, 2 of them with 8+ interfaces, used in an environment where performance matters (VoIP, etc.), plus 1 at home, with multiple interface, using an old P2 266mhz system. It's a cheap way of getting a multi-interface firewall, while also supporting useful enterprise features such as VPN (both pptp and ipsec), captive portal and much more.

There is also a fork, pfSense, which adds a lot more features to m0n0wall, but does require a hard drive/flash drive.

One thing to keep in mind is that with companies offering real high speed internet (FIOS), a typical consumer router might not even cut it anymore (performance wise).

So how would one use this software and get wireless connections as well?

 

[electron]

You either insert a wireless nic which is supported by the OS, or you use an external access point (which is what I do), located on its own firewall interface.

 

[pete_c]

Building your own FW would also offer you the opportunity to learn a bit about FW's in general, add enterprise like featuers (as mentioned). You can create an "off the shelf" free setup with just basics and add a bit at a time. (IE VPN, email scanning, VOIP proxy, etc).

Best of all its free. Here's a link to some different home network configurations using off the shelf firewalls and custom built firewalls.

Home network diagrams Link

and a bit of humor.

 

[damage]

here's a deal on a tomato/dd-wrt compatible router http://bit.ly/62p8Gv it has a usb port so you can use it as a low end NAS as well.

 

[drozwood90]

Pete,

I've been playing with smoothwall. Pretty impressive.

Now I think I'll need to get a wireless card, or get my hands on a working "wireless" accesspoint to hook in.

I think I want to try to go the wireless card route, as you can setup multiple "zones" Green, Purple, Orange, Red. So, red = internet, green = wired, orange (I think) would become the wireless.

Very impressive....easy to setup.

--Dan

 

[pete_c]

With a wireless card you'd have a do all box. SW is very flexible. One of the features of the commercial version is the ability to do load balancing via two internet connections. I don't believe the free one allows for this.

My current SW test box is an old Netier XL2000 with a second NIC and a CF card. Using an overclocked AMD mobile processor in it. Getting about 600Mhz with it.

 

[drozwood90]

Within the next few weeks...a friend (who knows more about Linux then I) is going to lend me a USB wireless card to try. Hopefully it will work!

Thanks again to all who responded. It was very helpful to me, as I've been using the same router for about 10 years...I've just not been keeping up with the new features...

--Dan

 

[pete_c]

Yes in the "old" days much of the configuration was manual like playing with IPChain files, manually opening up UDP/TCP send and receive ports, etc using text editors. Brings to mind "edlin"...didn't like it... With any new Linux/BSD FW you can do it now with a GUI. For many of the changes you would have to reboot router, now you can do them mostly dynamically. I still do use Putty and WinSCP a lot though with the Linux boxes. Another Linux program that I use is called "WebMin". It actually provides a GUI interface to almost every function you can think of. At work we used to have about 20 F5's (a bit overkill with a literal unlimited budget - Airline)