pratttech
join:2004-03-17
Attleboro, MA
|  reply to Flogator
Re: [wired] BEFSX41 firmware 1.50.18 - POST YOUR R
I have been reviewing this thread and I was surprised at all of the errors people seem to be having with the release firmware. I ran the FW that shipped with my router for only a few weeks till I went to 1.43.something. That I ran for months without any errors until I recently upgraded to 1.50.18 (last week sometime). Excepting that my router lost all of its configs and reset to default settings with this update (something that did not happen when I updated to 1.43), I have had no problems (knock on wood) at all with this router.
I am a residential ADSL subscriber, with a dhcp assigned address over PPoE. Most of my settings are default-- SPI is on, nothing is filtered, PPTP and PPoE passthrough is off-- IPSec is on (I use a VPN client to access work LAN). Time server is user defined. I also use the dyndns.org service to follow my dynamic IP so that I can access my LAN remotely. With the exception of some gaming port triggers, the only static port forward is 22 (ssh) to my BSD box. The main reason I upgraded my FW was to get the option to totally stealth identd instead of the leaving it shown as closed like it did under 1.43. Now when I run an nmap against my router only port 22 shows open, and that is only when run with the -P0 switch.
I have had no issues with the router dropping connections or spontaneously resetting. I have been very happy with its stability-- right now it is reporting an uptime of 90 days (which is pretty weird since it lost all its other settings when I updated the FW). The Linksys did not cause the only connectivity problem that I ever had; it was an overactive dhcp lease from my ISP, which would change my IP too frequently. It was a hassle because it would cause a TCP reset in my SW every time that happened—and X apps get really upset when their tunnel collapses 
I just ssh'd to my box and then tried the trace out to a site and had no problems (except the ICMP filtering at the endpoint, but that's all too common nowadays): Mine is BSD traceroute, while the thread seems to indicate a Microsoft tracert. Maybe that could be the difference? Only other problems I ever have is due to my particular remote maintenance method (I don't enable remote access on the router, but instead tunnel my BSD box’s Netscape through ssh to whatever X server I'm at and then even though I am at a remote location; I am still actually accessing the Linksys locally). The problem is that the connection gets reset if I make any changes because the router apparently resets everything, not just the particular change I made.
So overall I am very happy with my cheap router. Only thing I haven't enabled yet that I intend to someday is the VPN endpoint functionality. What I really want to do is use the Linksys like the PIX I have at work and run a VPN client to get remote access to my home LAN. Haven't seen any one commenting on having done this yet, and as my current method of ssh and tunnels pretty much functions as a VPN except that I have to manually configure each service I need to run (which isn’t many); it's not a high priority for me.
Anyway the only other comment I have to make is now that Cisco owns Linksys, when the heck are they going to put out a Linksys CLI similar to the Cisco IOS so I can ditch the n00b web GUI and get all my configs listed on one screen? |
