Need a router/firewall

[Zoinks]

Can anyone recommend a good gigabit firewall/router? 8 ports or so?

Thanks.

 

[Zoinks]

Nevermind: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=36&threadid=1431398&enterthread=y

 

[SaintTigurius]

For gigabite and home use,, DI-4300 or DI-4100

 

[Zoinks]

Thanks for the tip, but google and pricegrabber searches of "DI-4300" or "DI-4100" yield nothing useful.

 

[JackMDS]

As far as Entry Level Routers go.

Hint one: It is much cheaper to buy a 4 Ports Router and add a Switch to it. 8 ports Routers proportionally very expensive.

Hint two: While Basic Giga Hardware is available for reasonable price, the Non-server OSs and the regular Internet parameters are not optimized for Giga.

If you incorporate Basic Internet and Giga in the same Network and you want to optimize the Giga you need to use Jumbo Frames and MTU of 9000. However Internet is Optimized around 1450-1500 MTU.

So you have a conflict of Interest.

Here is more about Giga: Peer to Peer Giga Home Networks.

Possible solution.

Buy a regular Router and install a Normal Internet Sharing Network.

Add a Giga NIC (as a second Card) to each computer that you want to be On Giga Network.

Get an inexpensive Jumbo Frame capable Switch (SMC makes one).

Plug all the Giga NICs to the Giga Switch.

Use different IP band and configure the Giga Network as a second Network.

:sun:

P.S. spidey07 remark on this concoction.

hmmm, two layer2 networks.

hmmmm. It?s kludgy, but it would indeed work.

nice idea.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm not sure how well Windows' OSes deal with multi-homed networks when it comes to routing IP. It's almost made worse by the fact that MS has decreed that NetBIOS over TCP/IP is now the "preferred" transport for SMB, rather than raw NetBEUI frames. While on one hand that's a good thing, because they are routable, on the other hand, it makes it hard to tell Windows' to route NBT IP packets over one interface, while routing other IP packets to the internet gateway. (Actually, I guess it wouldn't be difficult, just need to punch in some routing-table entries, and maybe edit the hosts file. But that's a bit more work than the average SOHO Windows' networking installer might know to do.)

As far as the MTU issue.. wouldn't Windows' internal automatic path-MTU discovery feature help here? Run 9000 MTUs to the LAN for filesharing over GigE, and 1500 MTUs out the router to your broadband internet connection? (In a typical scenario.)

 

[Need4Speed]

astaro now offerers firewall appliances.