One Hell of A VPN Router/SW Firewall Combo: Pete's Review

[35Pete]

LinkSys RVS4000 4-Port Gigabit Security Router With VPN (Virtual Private Network)

It's a Business Series hardware router/VPN/firewall made by Cisco Systems. $150 at Best Buy. Less at NewEgg.

I bought it and I LOVE it.

Talk about security. This thing will do everything in terms of security except guard the front door of your house. Documentation is outstanding. Lots of menus but ergonomically organized to make sense and not drive you bananas.

Here's the link.

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1150491147722&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=4772254480B02

Behind it I have this. Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0. I had an issue with a bug they released last month but they soon corrected it. Since then, and before, it's operated beautifully. IMO, having owned Norton, AVG, Iolo, and Zone Alarm SW firewalls/anti-virus/spyware, this one kicks ass by a country mile.

You can get a FREE 30 day trial. Try it. It's pricey $80, but WELL worth it.

http://usa.kaspersky.com/products_services/internet-security.php

Put the Cisco HW firewall in front of the Kaspersky Internet Security Firewall and you have one ass-kicking security setup for your rig.

I built this latest rig 18 months ago (since upgraded it hardware-wise 3 times...that's what geeks do. Ask Merc) and with Kaspersky alone I have NEVER had a virus, spyware, trojan horse, or rootkit. Now, I feel EVEN safer.

The SW interface is actually browser based (offline interactive files that program the router). That's so convenient. WOW!. It has dozens of menus but ergonomically organized so that finding options is a breeze.

On the beer scale rating I give Kaspersky 4 out of 5 beers (you'll need some CPU firepower to run it) and the RVS 4000 5 beers.

Kaspersky Internet Security: :rockon: :rockon: :rockon: :rockon:


Linksys RVS 4000: :rockon: :rockon: :rockon: :rockon: :rockon:

Screen Pics of the RVS Interface. (I put in some bogus settings for obvious "broadcast to the world" reasons:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/link_firewall.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/link_IPS.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/link_status.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/link_vpn.jpg

Some Kaspersky Screen shots.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/KIS1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/KIS2.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/KIS3.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/kis4.jpg

[35Pete]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y241/35Pete/kis5.jpg

[Merc]

Damn it Pete, now you have me wanting to wire the house up with CAT5e. Can you tell me this, if I hook the wireless router up to one of the ports from that Linksys, it would be covered by the Linksys firewall, right? I can deal with any conflicts firewall-wise (probably just disable the wireless firewall) but I wonder if the router wants to talk just to the modem? It would be modem->linksys->wireless router and two PC's on CAT 5e. Then i could connect my new baby up wirelessly as well as have the PC's safely on ethernet. My wife uses her PC to talk to Turkey over skype and uses IM video conferencing so i was hoping to get GB broadband in the house.

Pete, maybe you could educate us on VPN. Also, I like my wireless router because it has a built in printer port. In other words, it talks directly to the printer without having any PC on. How can i connect the printer (it is USB only) up to such a router so all PC's can print without having a PC always on in the loop?

[35Pete]

Damn it Pete, now you have me wanting to wire the house up with CAT5e. Can you tell me this, if I hook the wireless router up to one of the ports from that Linksys, it would be covered by the Linksys firewall, right? I can deal with any conflicts firewall-wise (probably just disable the wireless firewall) but I wonder if the router wants to talk just to the modem? It would be modem->linksys->wireless router and two PC's on CAT 5e. Then i could connect my new baby up wirelessly as well as have the PC's safely on ethernet. My wife uses her PC to talk to Turkey over skype and uses IM video conferencing so i was hoping to get GB broadband in the house.

Pete, maybe you could educate us on VPN. Also, I like my wireless router because it has a built in printer port. In other words, it talks directly to the printer without having any PC on. How can i connect the printer (it is USB only) up to such a router so all PC's can print without having a PC always on in the loop?

I'll find the 1-800 number and you can ask them yourself. But since you can clone the routers MAC to be the same as the modem to the world(which my ISP requires) then you should have no issue. furthermore, the default gateway for your wireless modem's ISP now becomes a 192.xxx.xxx.xxx number. Extra security! And who can steal your bandwidth? It'd be treated like a DOS attack I would think.

[35Pete]

Damn it Pete, now you have me wanting to wire the house up with CAT5e. Can you tell me this, if I hook the wireless router up to one of the ports from that Linksys, it would be covered by the Linksys firewall, right? I can deal with any conflicts firewall-wise (probably just disable the wireless firewall) but I wonder if the router wants to talk just to the modem? It would be modem->linksys->wireless router and two PC's on CAT 5e. Then i could connect my new baby up wirelessly as well as have the PC's safely on ethernet. My wife uses her PC to talk to Turkey over skype and uses IM video conferencing so i was hoping to get GB broadband in the house.

Pete, maybe you could educate us on VPN. Also, I like my wireless router because it has a built in printer port. In other words, it talks directly to the printer without having any PC on. How can i connect the printer (it is USB only) up to such a router so all PC's can print without having a PC always on in the loop?

What's nice about this baby is that it will set up PP encyrpted tunneling among multiple parties that have the same unit or units with the same feature. So that would be ideal for your wife if she doesn't want anyone packet sniffing her conversation.

[dasaybz]

Cmon Pete, be a real man and buy a Pix.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833120313

And then wire your house up with some fiber and buy a couple of these guys.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833120020R

And make sure to put a couple of these in the switches

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124059

You'll have a good start then. :)

[SabresAllTheWay]

Nice Pete