anyone know about Netopia routers?

[groovin]

specifically the R5300 T-1 router and 7100SDSL

are they any good? what are their competitors and how do they compare? thanks

 

[bobcpg]

Well, i use either a 7100 or 8100 SDSL at work and it works good as far as the routing goes. I'd say the bad part is that it is a b1tch to configure. I had to have the netopia people help me get going to use the VPN and set up NAT. They also charge for the support after the 60 day grace period starting from your first call. As for the R5300 i dont know.

hope it helps
-bob

 

[mboy]

I am using the 5300 T-1. Not a bad little router to te.l u thr truth. Actually very easy to configure. I am running it in NAT mode, then into a Sonicwall Pro 200 ( I have all staic IP's within my Lan except for a couple of DHCP leases I leave open for various things.

One to one NAT (virtual server) is easy to configure, has built in firewall ( altho I only use it to block incoming 1-1024 on the routers actual IP ( I have a block of 8 publics).

I have no complaints about it whatsoever.

Havent tried the VPN thru yet, altho will be this weekend when my Sonic Wall Soho arrives and I try to connect it to my Pro 200.

I think I paid like $650 for it from my ISP.

I tftp'd their config (frame relay files and stuff), then set up my one to one Nat (forwarded ports I wanted to) and thats that!

I have somelinks to their conifg pages, users manuals etc if u decide to go with it and need them.

 

[groovin]

thanks for the replies guys...

mboy, i already have these two routers that were left over from a branch office. i was thinking of setting them up at another office with a T-1 line coming in. as far as the r5300 goes, does it always have to plug directly into the line from the ISP? can i have another router recieve the connection from the ISP and have the netopia hook into that?

because in the past, ive only gotten it to work in this config:

ISP----- R5300 -------LAN

and not

ISP----- another router ------ bastion hosts (web, ftp) ------- R5300 ------- LAN

i read thru the instructions that i downloaded, and it says i can chain it to a hub, but i dont know if that meant im constrained to this:

ISP----hub----R5300----LAN

also, the instructions werent too detailed about how to telnet into the thing to configure it... the router is reset to defaults but i dont know what IP its going to pull, the default password (probaly blank, but i havent been able to telnet into to see) so i dont know what IP to telnet into. i cant find my serial cable to console into it, but i guess i can go buy one later. last time, the ISP engineers insisted on doing the router setup, i only had to know the basics about using it... they were also happy to tech support it whenever it was giving me probs.

thanks again

 

[mboy]

I am not sure about hooking up a router before it, never tried

No problem with hub in front of it tho as I did it briefly to sniff some incoming packets.

As far as finding th IP, we can 1st hope it is running DHCP, so just hook a laptop or pc into it, config it for DHCP and do an ipconfig /all or winipcfg (in 9x) and see what the gateway is.

try this link:
http://netopia.com/equipment/pdf/manuals/r5000/leaseref.pdf

If you reset it, try 192.168.1.1

That should work I think.

 

[subflava]

I used to work with the Netopia routers quite a bit when I was working for an ISP. I really liked them and they had good features for the price. They're inbetween your typical SOHO stuff from Linksys/D-Link/etc and Cisco equipment.

Regarding your question about hooking up a router or some other equipment in front of the router, that won't be possible because the WAN interface on the Netopia is basically a built-in CSU/DSU. You're only going to be able to put things on the LAN interface. One possible option you have would be to buy a Netopia R9100 Eth-to-Eth router. Then you could do this:

ISP---R5300---R9100---LAN

All of the Netopia R series routers have the exact same OS and interface so administering the R9100 would be the same as the R5300. If you're interested, you can PM me about the R9100 I have sitting in my room that I'm not using. Maybe we could work something out.