Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL Router
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| The Linksys Boxshot |
Linksys is one of the big shakers in the SOHO market with some of the best and most cost effective network solutions, period. Ive always respected Linksys also for their speed to market, and thanks to that type of lightning quick product movement, they were able to pull a quick one over the other companies with their Broadband Gateway, which came out long before anyone else could mobilize their product. Because of that, the Linksys had the advantage of early market adoption. That, coupled with the fact that it is dirt cheap, has made this router highly appealing - so appealing that when we tried to buy one for our office a few months back, we were put on a 4 week waiting list.
Of all the routers in the roundup, I thought the Linksys had the snazziest case design. Its granite grey and electric blue case was rugged and had a very organized panel of LEDs for quick, at a glance status reading. The router is also more compact than the other routers, more box shaped, and was designed for stacking with similar products (although thus far, I can only see that the Broadband Gateways would fit, and I am not certain you need multiple gateways in any one installation). Even the inline brick-style power supply is custom made and exuded a rugged quality of construction. It was also the only inline brick power supply, so all the other routers had large brick power supplies that each up previous power bar real-estate. I was mightily impressed with the overall package.
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| Angled view of the Linksys |
As with the other routers, the Linksys router uses a web browser based admin interface, but unlike the other routers, this was a highly professional looking interface complete with an in-depth online help to guide you through the different features. The only thing I didnt like about the admin interface was the long, 5-6 second delay that precedes each initial access. Every other router in the roundup instantly responds when trying to access the admin interface, while the Linksys router has a relatively long wait period before its admin interface finally pops up.
The installation of the router is made easy using the standard one screen setup screen that includes every setup field that you may ever need, including the PPPoE settings. The built-in DHCP server can be set to start allocating IPs at a specific number, and only allocate so many addresses.
Access filters on the Linksys router were considerably less powerful that the other routers in the roundup. You can essentially either block a specific IP from accessing the internet at all, or completely close off a port to all your users. This is obviously not very flexible for a router
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| Front view of the Linksys |
capable of allocating a max of 253 IPs, because you cant subsection your network to control who has access to what ports (and thus services). For instance, if you only want a certain number of your users to have telnet access, you would restrict access of port 23 to those users who have need of telnet access. With the Linksys router, this is impossible, either you allow ALL your users to access a port, or you allow none of them that access. Apparently a newer, beta release of the firmware allows some more robust port range mappings (ver.1.33), but since it wasnt ready for official use we didnt take a look at it.
Although the access features may be a little weaker, the security of the Linksys router is interesting, because it includes a feature called WAN Request Blocking. This feature essentially prevents your network from being ping or probed by outside users. Some net mischiefs try scanning ports in order to find weaknesses that they can exploit, and normally firewalls return a CLOSED port, but this usually tells the would be hacker that there is a computer or firewall at that IP. With the WAN request blocking enabled, the Linksys appears completely invisible to these types of probes. A quick check with Gibson Researches online Port Probe script (http://grc.com/) confirmed that when the request blocking feature is enabled, the router chooses to ignore port probes and so appears not to exist at all.
Port forwarding and DMZ are basically standard features in all the routers out there, and the Linksys Etherfast router was no exception here. The port forwarding setup screen is straight forward and changes are applied immediately with no requirement of a router reboot.
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| The rear with custom power supply |
While the router seems to fall short on the access controls, it makes up for this in part with its advanced features, which include Dynamic Routing using the RIP protocols and Static Routing. I found it a little curious that these two powerful features were included, because they are best suited for larger networks, which is fine, except that the access rights controls arent necessarily suitable for such large networks, where WAN usage is a larger concern.
In general the Linksys product met and exceeded all expectations that I had for an internet router. For home use, and small office use where access control isnt critical, the Linksys 4 port Etherfast DSL/Cable router is great value for the money.
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