SpeedGuide.net :: Print Review

You may or may not have heard of Deerfield.com If you haven�t keep in mind they are a leading provider of some awesome home and business networking software. Some very famous software packages have come from Deerfield.com which include, FTP-Serv U, DNS 2 Go, MDaemon, Internet Neighborhood, Internet Quick, MailScan, Relay Fax, World Client and of course the one which we are reviewing here today, Wingate.

Wingate, in the past and at present, is one of the leading Internet Sharing (NAT/Proxy) programs in existence; it�s very popular one of the top names in Proxy/NAT software.

Before we delve into this software package in depth, lets define some terminology and technologies so that you can figure out just exactly what Wingate is for and what it does. I used the term NAT and Proxy in the above paragraph. Lets define just exactly what these terms mean.

Overview of Wingate

Ok lets get into Wingate specifically now. First of all you can visit Deerfield's website located here: http://wingate.deerfield.com for specific details. The current version of Wingate we're reviewing is 4.1.1. Here is an Overview of Wingate as shown on their front page:

Pricing

The other most important thing I�m sure you most want to know about is the Pricelist, just how much is this thing going to cost me! You can find their pricing list right �Here- I�ll also lay it out for you here:

Wingate Home

3 User = $39.95
6 User = $69.95

Wingate Standard

3 User = $79.95
6 User = $139.95
12 User = $229.95
25 User = $349.95
50 User = $499.95
Unlimited User = $699.95

Wingate Pro

6 User = $299.95
12 User = $499.95
25 User = $699.95
50 User = $849.95
Unlimited User = $949.95

Now keep in mind you are paying for the License�s and License keys needed to run Wingate, because there is only one main download of Wingate and to unlock the different steppings and features of Wingate is determined by what kind of Key/Package you purchase, when you enter the key it unlocks whatever package you have purchased. So as you can see it can get very expensive for the Standard and Pro versions, but these are meant for SOHO or Business or Corporate types of environments where they can afford this level of software for their business. And the Wingate Home is meant for just that, Home Internet sharing use, but note that you are only limited to a 6 User version under the Wingate Home. So if you have more users you want to hook up you will have to upgrade to a higher version under Wingate Pro, which initially can be a little costly.

Pre-Setup

This is pretty much what you need to do prior to installing WinGate. Set aside one computer, this computer or Server is going to become your Internet Sharing Server. Anytime you want to access the Internet on the other client machines this PC has to be on and connected to the Internet, without it you will have no Internet access to your other machines. This means that this computer must stay on 24/7 or at least for the times you want to surf the web on the other computers. It is required to have two network cards in this computer. They can both be PCI 10/100 cards or ISA cards if that�s all you have, but you have to have two of them, preferably of a different brand/model so you can tell them apart in the Network Setup of your computer, otherwise you will get confused as to which one is hooked up to what. You then hook your Cable or xDSL or whatever; Ethernet cable into one of the NIC�s. Then setup your computer to get access to the Internet, make sure you can surf the web and download. Then you will want to hook the other card to a Hub or Preferably a Switch, If Cat5 Straight Through wire hook it up to the Uplink port on the Hub or Switch. Then connect all the client computers to the Hub/Switch via regular straight through cables to the ports on the hub/switch. Once you do all this and all the machines are running it�s time to install WinGate.

I am going to use Wingate Pro Unlimited User version for my review, simply because I needed to have all options available to try them all out and see what this baby is capable of. I did also try out the WinGate Home 6 user version to see what it�s like for Home users to set it up. If you go to their download page located right �Here- you yourself can sign up and download a 30 day Evaluation version so you can try it out hands on to see if this might work for you. As you will notice on their download page they support all versions of Windows including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT4 Server, Windows NT4 Workstation, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Professional. Wingate 4.1.1 has been tested on all these platforms and works fully with them. You will notice the first table is for people who are downloading and setting up Wingate for the first time, a new clean install. It is just one download that has support for all versions of Windows, so no need to download specific files for certain Windows versions. And the neat thing is the whole thing is only 3.6MB in size! The next table below that one is for people who are currently running a previous version of WinGate and need to upgrade to 4.1.1 The table below that is to download the (NSW) Network Setup Wizard which is only intended for the Wingate Home, the point of it is to automatically guide Home users through the Setup and Installation process of getting everything working just right, perfect for novices who need a little help setting something like this up. Note that this only works on Win95/98/ME. The size of this download is 6.44MB.

Below that are some tables to download the WinGate Plug-Ins. WinGate is unique in that you can download Plug-Ins to expand its feature base. The two plug-ins they have available are InterQuick and (ENS) Extended Network Support. InterQuick combines the best features of web accelerators, content control, and advertisement blockers and scheduling, resulting in increased Internet performance, it is 1.95MB in size. ENS offers three new options for WinGate: A firewall to secure the WinGate server, NAT to make Internet sharing even easier, and bridging to allow users to share drives, it is 612KB in size.

I cannot stress enough to READ the SETUP DIRECTIONS, you will find them �Here- You choose what operating system you are installing on then choose what type of Internet Connection you are using and it will give a detailed numbered description of how to set it up properly. Let me give you this advice, Follow those Instructions, DO NOT try it on your own without reading the instructions. This is where I made my mistake, I thought since I knew so much about networking I wouldn�t need to read the instructions so I tried to setup Wingate without reading them. Well it took me 3 hours and I still didn�t have it working, so I finally decided to read the instructions. I started all over and had the thing working in under 5 minutes! What I was doing wrong was I inputted the IP and Subnet mask AFTER I had installed Wingate on the server, but the directions say to input the IP and Subnet before you Install Wingate at all. So moral of the story, READ the DIRECTIONS and follow them FIRST, don�t assume you know what you are doing, read read read first.

Ok, here is how I started and how I hooked everything together on my LAN here at home. Here�s a little diagram of my setup:

It has some very neat features about it, one that I really liked is the History. With the history it keeps track of everything that goes through it, every web address that passes through it! It�s really pretty neat to browse through and see everything that�s come through it. This is a good feature to watch either what your kids are doing online and or your employees at work. It�s accessed through the Gate Keeper on the server machine where Wingate server is running.

I only ran into a few anomalies running Wingate on my LAN. As you know I had WinGate running on Windows 2000 Server and one of my client pc�s was Windows 2000 Professional. Well because of the different network settings in Windows 2000 versus Windows 98/ME-tweaking Wingate is a little bit harder in Windows 2000. One problem I kept having was a DNS issue. Sometimes domain names got a little messed up with the IP�s they were supposed to go with. I would type in one Internet address and it would go to the previous Internet address I was at, no matter what I did, even constant refreshing wouldn�t fix it. I had to close IE and re-open it for it to fix it. Another annoying issue was I kept getting time outs, I would click on a link it would say �this page could not be displayed� it was timing out. Closing IE and re-opening it also fixed this. And the other main thing was since I have @Home they use friendly domain names for the Mail and News servers. @Home uses �Mail� and �News� for the mail and news servers. But with WinGate running it did not understand what Mail and News should translate to. This was fixable by manually inputting the DNS on each machine, server and clients. So there are a few minor bugs in Windows 2000 at this time, but they are minor, just annoying. Everything can be made to work, that�s the beauty of WinGate it�s very flexible with many options for tweaking to get everything to work just right.

I tried other services as well and they all worked with no problems. Napster started up and ran normally without me even having to configure any ports! It just instantly worked just as it did before. ICQ no problems there, I was able to receive and transmit files with no problems at all. IRC, worked like a champ, no settings needed to be changed. FTP? No problems either! I was able to FTP into my server from work just as normal as ever. WinGate has very good support for services run over the network, it�s a very powerful piece of software.

One other question I hear a lot of people asking with this type of thing is Firewall capability, how good is it? So for that I went to www.grc.com and ran their firewall tests on my server to see how well it went.

I can tell you first hand that the firewall capability�s work GREAT! My NetBIOS (Port 139) was Stealth, yes Stealth! That means for all intents and purposed it doesn�t exist to hackers.

My advice to you? Try it out yourselves. On Wingate�s download page right �Here- they let you download and try out a 30-day evaluation version. If you are at all interested in this piece of software I suggest you try it out for yourselves, because that�s really the only way you will be able to tell if this fits your needs.

     1.)     Buy an IP address from your ISP for each PC on your network.
     2.)     Buy a hardware Router device with built in NAT.
     3.)     Set up a computer to act as an Internet Sharing NAT server or Proxy server.

Wingate falls in the category of Number 3. It�s a powerful piece of software that acts as a Proxy/NAT server on one computer to share out an Internet connection translating from one IP to an Internal Network of IP�s. It�s incredibly tweakable, there are many settings to make sure this will work and do what you need it to on your LAN.

It has features Galore, from DHCP to DNS to being a NAT or Proxy and having a powerful firewall that works. Their website is full of very usefull information and documentation to help you set this up and to help you decide which version will work best for you.