Dual WAN router suggestions?

[vnangia]

Hello all,

I'm new to the forums, but not the website, and I need some help designing my new home network. I'm hoping some of you networking gurus can help me out.

After a particularly bad few weeks of connectivity - the slightest summer rain has killed our cable connection - I've decided to build a network which is slightly more robust. The option I'm currently exploring is adding a GSM or CDMA gateway to serve as a backup to our cable connection.

I'm looking to buy a relatively inexpensive dual-WAN wired router, which in turn will serve up connectivity to a wireless AP and several wired devices. The cheapest device I've found is the Linksys RV016, which in addition to being twice my budget at $400, also only has a 100Mbps internal switch, which is a severe downgrade from our current 1Gbps internal network, and makes media streaming all but impossible.

Slashdot recently had a feature about this, but suggestions there were long on names, but short on actual experience. Can anyone suggest a good, relatively inexpensive, dual WAN gateway?

Alternatively - and in some ways, I enjoy the challenge of it - does anyone have experience building a device like what I am seeking?

Many thanks!

 

[scotty]

I read through the same slashdot article. I found pfsense recommended a lot, and I'd have to add a +1 to that recommendation. Pfsense is a free, fully featured BSD based router (web based config, no linux knowledge necessary). Throw it on the most basic new or used hardware you can find, and bang-for-the-buck, it can't be beat. I've done pfsense on a few occasions and I'm a big fan of it. It's as powerful and reliable as the hardware you put it on (doesn't need much horsepower, any old P3 or P4 box is plenty). I know of a few pfsense boxes in big production environments and it can definitely hold its own. I'm currently building a pfsense router for my new house. IMO, based on what you're looking for it's definitely the winner. It's comparatively featured to a $2500 router. Just add interfaces (NICs), and hang off switches and AP's to your fancy.

I personally don't know of any consumer dual-wan solutions within your budget besides the Linksys RV series.

 

[vnangia]

I've heard good things about both pfSense and m0n0wall myself.

One route that I'm thinking about going down is a Soekris box - my issue is that the router is one of the few devices that will be powered by a UPS, so even though our power is pretty reliable, I still want it as low power as possible, and a P3 or, god forbid, a P4 would kill my UPS pretty darn quick.

Anyone with Soekris experience?

 

[jdabbs]

I've heard good things about both pfSense and m0n0wall myself.

One route that I'm thinking about going down is a Soekris box - my issue is that the router is one of the few devices that will be powered by a UPS, so even though our power is pretty reliable, I still want it as low power as possible, and a P3 or, god forbid, a P4 would kill my UPS pretty darn quick.

Anyone with Soekris experience?

The pfSense box I'm using now (2x AthlonMP) consumes over 4kWhr a day ($15/mo), so I recently went shopping for an embedded system. I chose ALIX over Soekris primarily due to cost. A Soekris system has several advantages: up to twice the memory, a 4th Ethernet port, and an 44-pin IDE(laptop) port, but at almost twice the price of a fully assembled ALIX 2C3 system. I couldn't justify paying the premium, considering the CPUs used are equivalently clocked.

I've heard 5W usage quoted for both the Alix and Soekris, so power should not be a concern.

 

[Brandon]

I would be mindful using GSM as a network failover, as a lot of wireless providers are starting to crack down on people doing that. Recent an AT&T client was charged over $30,000 in a single bill for "misusing" his to run his home network.

These days, you get a 5Gb/month cap, which isn't much for a single PC, or phone, but it adds up fast if you're not mindfull.

 

[vnangia]

I chose ALIX over Soekris primarily due to cost. A Soekris system has several advantages: up to twice the memory, a 4th Ethernet port, and an 44-pin IDE(laptop) port, but at almost twice the price of a fully assembled ALIX 2C3 system. I couldn't justify paying the premium, considering the CPUs used are equivalently clocked.

Indeed - I must confess that I had forgotten about the ALIC boards, and I think I'm going to follow you into build my router around the 2C3 as well. Thank you very much for the tip; I don't think the real issue here will be RAM, given that this is for a very small network and the stuff it has to keep in RAM is... limited.

I would be mindful using GSM as a network failover, as a lot of wireless providers are starting to crack down on people doing that. Recent an AT&T client was charged over $30,000 in a single bill for "misusing" his to run his home network.

These days, you get a 5Gb/month cap, which isn't much for a single PC, or phone, but it adds up fast if you're not mindfull.

I'm not too concerned about this going over 5Gb. Considering this is a fallback - and hopefully, our complaints to our cable provider are not going unheeded - the idea here is to mainly provide a secondary route in the case of a temporary failure in the main connection.

The other thing is, I'm trying to build this as generically as possible so that there is the ability to switch over to a WiMax or other wireless data network, if the opportunity presents itself and the occasion requires it.

 

[Brandon]

For around a year and a half, my cable provider had some major growing pains, but now I'm very glad I stuck through it, as I can't get a better connection.. atleast for the price.

Starting out, they offered 2.5mb down, 128k up (Seven years ago, maybe?) three years later, the downtime was two days a week or more.

Today, I pay $65 a month for the "Gaming" package, which intails 12Mb down, 1.5 Mb (Yes, 1.5 mb) up. Static IP's run an extra $20 a month (Holy crap, it's a free number, why so much?!),

Over the past few years (And swapping to my own DNS) the overall downtime sits at around two days a year (Total time), maybe.

 

[thiggins]

Sorry for not having a dual WAN filter on the router charts. Looks like I need to add one.

Looking at the database turned up these two that are under $200:
Linksys RV042 Review: Solid Dual WAN, VPN Performer
Netgear FVS124G Review: Dual WAN, Gigabit LAN, 25 VPN tunnels

Neither is perfect. I wouldn't worry too much about gigabit LAN in your selection. Sounds like you already have a separate gigabit switch. Since the Internet connection isn't above 100 Mbps, if you don't plug anything else except the switch uplink into it, 100 Mbps shouldn't matter.

 

[JohnMark]

also looking at small network dual wan routers

I appreciated reading the excellent and comprehensive reviews on this site regarding the Linksys RV042 and the Netgear FVS124G. However, when I read other user review forums, it sounds like the units are horrible: The Linksys battery dies or the unit goes dead after one year and a day, while the Netgear firmware is too buggy to be useful.

I have 4 computers networked with a VOIP connection used for business calls using a cable and dsl connection. I'm using a Linksys SPA942 phone.

My main objective is the best possible VOIP friendly connection. VPN is not very important to me. Load balancing looks useful and the dual WAN fail over will be useful. Despite the seemingly better performance of the Linksys RV042, I'm leaning toward the Netgear FVS124G due to I think better QoS and reliability. I don't want to get too crazy on cost, but since this is a mission critical piece of equipment, I can spend a bit more than the minimum to get quality (but not hundreds upon hundreds...). I also have a tech guy that can help with hairy configuration issues if necessary.

My questions are:
What would be the most reliable single WAN router for my needs?
What would be the most reliable dual WAN router for my needs?
Wireless would be nice, too.

Thanks for anybody's help...!

 

[vnangia]

<snip>

Indeed - our area is marked for the first DOCSIS3.0 roll outs either late this year, or early next. We currently pay about $60 for a 15mbit down, 2mbit up, which actually runs as advertised. Plus, I have no particular love for Verizon - especially their "customer service". However, we've had a bunch of utility work in the area, accompanied by some pretty swift moving severe storms, which kills the connection dead. I suspect once I implement it a dual WAN setup with automatic GSM fallback, of course, we're never going to need it...

Sorry for not having a dual WAN filter on the router charts. Looks like I need to add one.

Looking at the database turned up these two that are under $200:
Linksys RV042 Review: Solid Dual WAN, VPN Performer
Netgear FVS124G Review: Dual WAN, Gigabit LAN, 25 VPN tunnels

Neither is perfect. I wouldn't worry too much about gigabit LAN in your selection. Sounds like you already have a separate gigabit switch. Since the Internet connection isn't above 100 Mbps, if you don't plug anything else except the switch uplink into it, 100 Mbps shouldn't matter.

Thanks for the help Tim - I actually did look them up (and yes, a dual-WAN - multi-WAN, even? - checkbox would be helpful for the charts!). There are two motivations for this building project:
1. I've heard many tales similar to JohnMark about the RV042 dying right outside of warranty and Netgear firmware issues; and,
2. Because I'd like to try my hand at building every last component on my network!

I suppose the latter is as much a driving force as the former, but one thing I'd like to try building is a Stompbox-like router that can serve as a network hub independently of any other boxes and cables and such. If I need to travel, I'd like to be able to just pick up the box and a power supply and rest assured I can get my data on the go. A long-term plan would be to even build a small hard drive in to serve some media files, ala Time Capsule, so I can toss it in the car for a long drive.

I will take another long look at the RV042 and FVS124G, but if you have had some long-term experience (6+ months, for example) with the two devices, I would very much appreciate hearing about it.

PS: Thank you all. This is exactly why I came here - the knowledge here is truly unsurpassed!

 

[zx10guy]

I'm not sure if you can figure out a way to register on the Netgear support forums without buying an actual ProSafe product to see the section where the FVS124G would be discussed. It's sort of underhanded in my opinion that Netgear set up access to certain parts of their forums based on whether you can provide a serial number to one of their ProSafe products.

I have many of their ProSafe products and have perused their forums. From reading through in the past, the FVS124G is a horrible product I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I was going to buy this router till I read about the problems with this thing and ended up getting a FVS338 instead. I don't know if Netgear has finally reigned in the firmware development on the FVS124G. Part of what I remember was that the original development team for the FVS124G was gone and the new team had to figure out things from scratch. The FVS338 has a backup serial port which can be used with a modem for backup internet connectivity. Obviously not as great as having another WAN port. Also from what I recall the FVX538 is starting to mature into a respectable product. But it's been a while since I kept up on all the goings on with the ProSafe line of routers.

Another option is to get a Cisco ASA 5505 with the security plus license. This license allows ISP failover functionality. How it does this is via a keep alive which you set on a known internet server or preferrably your default gateway for your ISP connection done by ICMP. If the set device stops responding to ICMPs (pings), the ASA automatically fails over to the backup ISP connection. I've seen the config example for this but haven't tried it myself on my personal ASA.

 

[arias]

Dual Wan

This is an area that I've been researching for years without having actually taken the plunge on a purchase as there never seems to be the perfect 'ultimate' product for the price available.

I agree with your assessment of the RV016, which for some reason the price has failed to drop. It's maintained its $400 price tag for the last five years!!! Especially now that 10/100 is going out of style it's shocking it still maintains its value. I guess that because it's the only router on the market with seven multi-wan ports available for load balancing is what gives it its staying power.

More recently, I've been intrigued by the release of Netgear's FVS336G (4 gigabit lan, 2 gigabit WAN) which I've seen the price fall from the original $400 to as low as $250 recently. I understand Tim's suggestion when he recommends the fvs124G since the WAN ports with today's dual wan routers wouldn't make a difference in speed since most ISPs still operate at 10/100. However, you mentioned that longevity in your setup will factor in your decision and I don't consider us that far off from providers moving up to gigabit lan in the very near future. The fiber lines that Verizon offers would seem to make a difference in whether your WAN ports were gigabit or 10/100.

I have heard outstanding things about the Pfsense software, and have been only held back by deciding what hardware to run it on, as like you, I prefer not to use a gargantuan desktop machine to do my load balancing, both for heat purposes and that I can't STAND the extra noise additional machines of that size make.

I have looked into Soekris, but wasn't sure how efficient Pfsense would run on a small embedded system like that with limited hardware resources. From the sounds of other others on this thread that use this solution it won't be much of a problem.

Keep us updated on what you decide. I might very well choose to follow your lead should you have success with whatever solution you come to.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I will take another long look at the RV042 and FVS124G, but if you have had some long-term experience (6+ months, for example) with the two devices, I would very much appreciate hearing about it.

I have several dozen RV042, RV082, and RV016 units out in the field at clients. I sometimes use an RV082 at home also.

Rock solid..stable...fast, very reliable PPTP VPN server, their software client IPSec "QuickVPN" client stinks, decent job at maintaining router to router VPN tunnels. Handles larger networks well versus a 100 dollar router. So its a good entry level biz grade router for the small business.

Reliability..I had read at Linksyinfo forums that a batch of 042s must have been bad...I think some bum batch of capacitors or something. Believe that was a couple of years ago. Out of all the ones I have out there (I think over 60)....I've only had 1 need to be replaced due to failure. It was at a golf resort...main clubhouse was up on a hilltop...building took a huge lightening hit that blew a hole in the building...the router got zapped...through the CAT5. So I can't blame the router.

Load balancing/Auto failover work "OK". I've run it with mixed cable and DSL at my own house, and have a few clients where it runs DSL and Motorola Canopy (basically point to point wireless...like a wireless T-1)

I more than often run a *nix distro at home. I usually try a few each year. Currently I've been running PFSense again...I tried it early on when it first came out..was buggy. But with the new version this past Feb...it's been rock stable for me. I like the QoS/traffic shaping it has...I can prioritize my online gaming....and de-prioritize downloads/P2P so the kids activities don't annoy my online gaming. Plus boost up the QoS for my Vonage phone. While it's fun to build a robust server for your little *nix router...with most *nix distros (the non-UTM ones)..you don't need a lot of power..so using high end server gear for them is simply not needed. I used an old IBM Thinkpad with a P3 that I had collecting dust. Just 256 megs of RAM, I think it's a P3 866. Onboard NIC, I stuck a DLink or Linksys PCMCIA NIC in the slot..installed PFSense....smooth as butter. Laptop is quiet, doesn't use a lot of juice, takes up little space....and under the heaviest of loads that I could put on it. I started downloading 3x huge files at the same time..each over 400 megs in size...totally floored my 6 meg cable connection. I then fired up Battlefield 2..and logged into my usual server. The kid fired up his Battlefield 2..same thing. The wife was busy surfing (shopping) online. We played online just fine lag free..the wife kept surfing fine..the downloads all came down fast. No regular consumer grade router could do that. My old P3 laptop..watching the status charts...that old slow pokey P3 never went above 35% CPU utilization.

 

[scotty]

Agree with Stonecat **cough cough ~~pfsense~~ cough cough**. The very first versions were a little sketchy but 1.2release is rock solid. 1.3 is due out 'soon', fixing and improving what little is missing in 1.2.

2 Things about consumer Linksys and D-link Routers, specifically the ones talked about here:

1. Keep in mind what you read on forums and the net about people having problems with routers is typical. People won't come on just for the point of saying 'mine works fine'. You'll usually only ever hear about the ones that don't work fine. Look up 'WRT54G issues' and you'll see tens of thousands of people who have had problems. But there's also probably millions in production that work just dandy. Just keep in mind that this is the very nature of the internet. The RV series is a popular unit, and you'll find lots of people who've had problems. I don't think the failure rates are particularly higher that most other units.

2. I generally dislike and generally distrust Linksys and D-Link products in small business settings. Out of personal experience, I've found Linksys/DLink (and others, like TrendNET) far more problematic than virtually any Cisco, Watchguard, or Sonicwall product I've ever put into production. In my opinion, if a business is willing to spend $300 or $400 on a router, why not spend a hundred or two more and simply get a far higher level product altogether. I've just seen too many flaky Linksys or Dlink products for me to recommend them as main routers in businesses. Routers these days are so critically central to most businesses, it still amazes my why people wont spend a few extra hundred bucks on a higher-grade unit. And having a Linksys go flaky on you at home is one thing, but flaky in a small to medium office and all hell breaks loose. I rest a lot easier at sites where I have a little Sonicwall or Watchguard or Pix in place than I do a Linksys/Dlink. OK, small rant over.

Again, pfsense is definitely a good choice. It also supports HA, so if high reliability is a concern, you can easily have a second box at the ready. Save the config file every now and again and you can have pfsense running on virtually anything again in minutes. OK, end of pfsense plug.

 

[michaelc]

PePLink

Why doesn't anyone mention PePLink Balance? You certainly have to take a look at it if you are looking for a dual wan router. I bought one for my company with 100 users a year ago. It works great. Installation is simple. VoIP calls are routed flawlessly.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Why doesn't anyone mention PePLink Balance? You certainly have to take a look at it if you are looking for a dual wan router. I bought one for my company with 100 users a year ago. It works great. Installation is simple. VoIP calls are routed flawlessly.

Have they added VPN functionality yet? I haven't seen them in our wholesaler channels yet...as a brand.

 

[vnangia]

Keep us updated on what you decide. I might very well choose to follow your lead should you have success with whatever solution you come to.

Sorry to disappear this weekend - it's been a busy one. My project is a bit on hold right now, due to work commitments doubling overnight.

I'm going to place an order for a Soekris 4511 or 4521 - haven't decided yet. Then I'm going to try my hand at following the instructions over at Stompbox Networks and see if I can get a basic router working, with the ability to fall over to a 3G card plugged into the box. Chances are good that I'm not going to get to doing this before the end of the month - at the earliest - so if anyone has any ideas before then, I'd love to hear them.

 

[arias]

Linksys RV routers

I have several dozen RV042, RV082, and RV016 units out in the field at clients. I sometimes use an RV082 at home also.

Rock solid..stable...fast, very reliable PPTP VPN server, their software client IPSec "QuickVPN" client stinks, decent job at maintaining router to router VPN tunnels.

YeOldeStonecat,

Interesting you mention you deploy many of these RV units, and you note the ipsec client sucks. I'm curious since all the RV units have GPL source available from linksys, and I would think that there would be active development in the opensource community to improve upon the firmwares of these dual band routers. Wondering if you've explored this area at all; whether there are 3rd party firmwares that improve upon the functionality and capabilities of these RV0XX linksys routers.

Thx for your input.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

YeOldeStonecat,

Interesting you mention you deploy many of these RV units, and you note the ipsec client sucks. I'm curious since all the RV units have GPL source available from linksys, and I would think that there would be active development in the opensource community to improve upon the firmwares of these dual band routers. Wondering if you've explored this area at all; whether there are 3rd party firmwares that improve upon the functionality and capabilities of these RV0XX linksys routers.

Thx for your input.

For years....I've keep an eye 'n ear out for something like DD-WRT or Tomato to fire up a firmware for the RV0. Nada.

 

[scotty]

For years....I've keep an eye 'n ear out for something like DD-WRT or Tomato to fire up a firmware for the RV0. Nada.

I too looked around a bit for alternative firmware for the RV0's - nothing. But there's maybe 1 RV0 in production for every 10,000 WRT's.

And besides, if you're spending 300 or 400 bucks buying a router like an RV0 just to put on alternative firmware, I don't know why you wouldn't just start looking towards something like pfsense anyway. You can buy a basic Athlon/Core2/Celeron box these days for about $300.