Thoughts?

Looking to establish simple and secure VPN on my router. Presently use an Intertex IX66 EDLFC which is bloody amazing and robust, but would consider a step up to access some router based features, although a loss of SP seems to be a bad thing, yet I've never made use of it in 3+ years.

Might keep the ix66 for another plan...or anybody have any suggestions on simple VPN plug and play boxes, basically don't want to leave machine a or b on all the time in order to access machine c, but I might leave machine c on all the time, therefore allwoing software based vPN kits....however I don't have a windoz server liscense atm...linux is obvious choice I guess...but then I just cry out and think router...

Low powered fanless EPIA...

Rob.

If you want it easy, go for the Vigor. If you want it slightly more adventurous, go for the Cisco. If you want to be down right living on the edge... listen to Rob

If you want it easy, go for the Vigor. If you want it slightly more adventurous, go for the Cisco. If you want to be down right living on the edge... listen to Rob

hehe I turned down a vigour when they first came to market...so three years on...thanks Rob, maybe, but presently sitting on way to much pc hardware as it is...

At this rate I'll need a rack before a switch. Just changed office and I can't have my dev servers there anymore. Not strictly business related although it never hurts when I can just do somthing if you know what I mean. So I'm merging 3 machines, but to achived it I need the VPN, pref simple as XP prof on new work PC, so using it's VPN connector, talk direct to my LAN here.

Vigor, new seems perfect, do not and cannot do router to router as router in office is already talking on a VPN to another router. I hope I'm not assuming I can make anohter connection. My knowledge in this area just skips the surface which is more dangerous than a complete lack...IIS eep nightmares...

Have a look at Smoothwall or IPcop.. nice linux based firewall/vpn solutions.

i use smoothwall at home, running on a 486 dx66 with a 100mb hdd, connected to one of those original "war of the worlds" btopenworld frog adsl modems. and it works fine

And regarding the Vigour routers.. a friend of mine has been thru 4 of them, it would mess up when configuring (from the manual), and the lack of a terminal port rendered it useless as the hard reset button didnt do anything. but on the plus side, when they do work right, its got Upnp support.. very handy for broadband gaming...

And regarding the Vigour routers.. a friend of mine has been thru 4 of them, it would mess up when configuring (from the manual), and the lack of a terminal port rendered it useless as the hard reset button didnt do anything. but on the plus side, when they do work right, its got Upnp support.. very handy for broadband gaming...

Arh yes froggie...used smoothwall for a while, for some reason I changed to ipcop, then wanted the space (was on an old dell box, not masive but big enough in a small room with full towers (since gone))

Love the stability of a router, intresting about the vigours...cisco I guess I can bend the ear of our net team; although now outsourced...see secondary motives for everything. They picked the 800 series for home dsl rollouts, just only a few know there setups.

Looked at swan on linux, but never got very far...might have to google...any freebie windows apps that don't need server?

About the Vigor - we have one at work acting as a VPN router. Agree that it's absolutely hassle-free, but we've also had one blow itself up after 1.5 years (and quite literally so!)...

So now on our second Vigor.

The 800 series are solid little routers.

You can config them via the web based interface or using the CLI. The CLI is more complex (well pretty much impossible without reading up on it) but the level of debugging and config is much higher than with the web based jobby.

The company i work for (no, not mentioning names :p i like to keep forums personal and not have to worry about adding a disclaimer to what i say :p ) has a lot of client remote sites using the 800 series (most notably the 837) for VPN access, or just general connectivity.

They certainly arent cheap, but then most Cisco stuff isnt. Im paying (through the nose) for an 831 for my home setup and i consider the money well spent. The router should last me for a long time to come.

Cisco.com is a great resource by the way. You can read all you need, and more there. There are even some Quick set-up guides for these devices.

Chances are if you have another company managing these devices you will never need to touch the config.