Fed up with routers

Gimpymoo · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:21

Over the years, I have had a few.

I allways find myself frustrated with them being unpredictable, for example:

QOS doesnt work as it says on the tin
Port forwarding not working as expected
Other Miscellaneous issue

So, I am thinking of going the route of using a PC as a router.

Now, would bridging networks in Windows be appropiate:

Modem> PC> Router (Router set as a gateway only) or would I best to use a dedicated linux distro?

Also, what hardware is recommended without spending over the odds.

As the familys internet usage increases, working QOS and traffic management and reporting is important.

oldbag · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:23

FreeBSD and ipfw. Done.

kg648 · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:24

Or get a Draytek something along of the lines of a Draytek 2820 excellent piece of kit.

Gimpymoo · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:32

oldbag said:
FreeBSD and ipfw. Done.

Can you recommend a decent GUI front end for ipfw?

kg648 said:
Or get a Draytek something along of the lines of a Draytek 2820 excellent piece of kit.

OH MY WORD - That thing looks immense.

kg648 · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:41

Can't fault it *every* feature works on it, including it handles NAT correctly.

oldbag · 22 Oct 2010 at 21:50

Gimpymoo said:
Can you recommend a decent GUI front end for ipfw?

Not sure there is one. I wrote mine on the command line and loaded it from a file on boot.

ThorpedoUK · 22 Oct 2010 at 22:04

I had the DrayTek 2800vg and couldn't in all honesty fault it - it was rock solid, for some reason I decided to sell it when I switched ISP's, really wish I'd kept it now!

shaf · 22 Oct 2010 at 22:08

I had same problems - then switched to pfsense and never looked back.

No router problems

.

me227 · 23 Oct 2010 at 01:10

Never had a problem with QOS or anything else with my WRT54GL and tomato firmware.

Gimpymoo · 23 Oct 2010 at 02:06

me227 said:
Never had a problem with QOS or anything else with my WRT54GL and tomato firmware.

I have a GS v4, is it worth trying Tomato then?

-=Vect0r=- · 23 Oct 2010 at 20:41

Tomato is win!

That router should be fine as long as you're not fussed about N connectivity. Definitely flash your router and give it a go as you have nothing to lose. Don't like it? Keep looking for something else.

Tomato QOS

Tomato FAQ

lixxus · 23 Oct 2010 at 21:36

forget all that embedded router hardware crap.

the hardware specs are too slow for these days broadband technologies and networking

overclockers have a good atom itx system for cheap.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-273-OK&groupid=43&catid=1078&subcat=

stick another Ethernet card, maybe a intel dual gigabit(cheap on ebay)

install a firewall distro either untangle/pfsense

bobs ur uncle

vsmora · 23 Oct 2010 at 23:04

sandman06 said:
...the hardware specs are too slow for these days broadband technologies and networking
...

Ehh? There are few current routers that can't cope with 50Mbps real WAN->LAN throughput, which is sufficient for pretty much every consumer broadband right now. Even once 100-200Mb FTTH becomes commonplace there are still plenty of capable models up to 600Mbps. Dedicated custom HW will generally work better than general purpose kit.

Don't get me wrong I use pfsense myself and recommend OP tries it (on an existing PC before commiting to a new purchase). I just don't want people mislead into thinking that going for a PC-based system is important for peak performance. Also pfsense is good but as a constant work-in-progress there are still bugs. Since some of the extra features are part of modules written by 3rd parties, quality can be variable.

A good Draytek is still worth considering.