Who makes a good Dual WAN port firewall/router?

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 9:03 pm

After some tweakage in my cable service plan, I will have 2 cable connections. Rather than getting the Sonicwall SOHO3, I would like to see what type of dual WAN port routers are out there (or at least a couple of configureable ports)..

I know the Nexland Turbo 800 (dual version) can do the job, but I have doubts toward Symantec's dedication to its inherited Nexland consumers in terms of firmware support, etc.

A good dual port router should be able to bridge my connections well and increase a bit on the overall upload bandwidth in order to host a decent Battlefield'42 server while 3-4 person LAN battles are waging.

I'm thinking sub $500 if possible.. I realize the curve gets steep on nice network hardware.

TIA,,

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 9:59 pm

A good dual port router should be able to bridge my connections well and increase a bit on the overall upload bandwidth in order to host a decent Battlefield'42 server while 3-4 person LAN battles are waging

Probably not - depends on whether your ISP allows this. There are plenty of thread on the topic at SG - search for "modem bonding"

Basically, you can load balance, not increase any single connection speed. Gaming can get complicated as the server has to use a single IP address for each client - if your router switches connections mid-game, you'd blip right out.

EDIT - best bet would be to use two routers, put two machine behind each - assuming 4 players.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 6:06 am

Symantecs been reselling tweaked Nexlands for quite some time (way before they bought them out). I used their model 200r for a few years at the old office. It screams. I'm confident Symantec will keep the current 100/200/200r line going for a while. Just the rest of Nexlands stuff they'll let disappear. They're getting stronger into the appliance market also.

Check them out on CDW's site right now, the 200r for around 600 bucks, with a Symantec software package bundled with it (either Client Security, or Small Business Edition antivirus)

zxc47 · Post by **zxc47** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 8:52 am

I run a nexland pro800 turbo .what do you want to know about it

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 10:54 am

Originally posted by cyberskye
Probably not - depends on whether your ISP allows this. There are plenty of thread on the topic at SG - search for "modem bonding"

Basically, you can load balance, not increase any single connection speed. Gaming can get complicated as the server has to use a single IP address for each client - if your router switches connections mid-game, you'd blip right out.

yes, load balancing i'm sorta familiar with (at least with servers).. I didn't really word my first post well, but I thought also there would be a way to setup the network so that when I request a page, download a file, etc etc, that it could use both connections simultaneously in order to retrieve the file a bit faster. Sorta like one half the file downloads from one connection and the other half from the second connection (at normal default speed -not double speed).. does this make sense? Is there something out there that utilizes this type of load balancing?.. Normal load balancing is just using the other connection when the first connection gets busy isn't it?

zxc47, what type of connections are you using on your pro800 turbo? How in depth are the firewall settings on the pro800 turbo? SPI? (I'll go check out the specs for that) Does the pro800 keep a decent firewall log?

YeOldeStonecat,
thanks for the suggestions, I'll go check out symantec's stuff in a bit.

I'd really like to stay away from dividing my network in half, but with 2 different IP's from 2 different providers, I can see this isn't going to be too simple. Is it possible to have 1 internal network that depends on the router to manage the WAN connections? One of the connections I could forward ports to my server while the other connection remains sealed up, or does port forwarding apply to both connections no matter what? I'm thinking it might depend on the hardware.

thanks for the replies everyone. Hope you guys are having a good friday!

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 10:55 am

Originally posted by koldchillah
I'd really like to stay away from dividing my network in half, but with 2 different IP's from 2 different providers, I can see this isn't going to be too simple. Is it possible to have 1 internal network that depends on the router to manage the WAN connections? One of the connections I could forward ports to my server while the other connection remains sealed up, or does port forwarding apply to both connections no matter what? I'm thinking it might depend on the hardware.

thanks for the replies everyone. Hope you guys are having a good friday!

You don't divide your network in half. The router remains the gateway for your network, 192.168.1.1. It does the load balancing internally.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 11:02 am

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
You don't divide your network in half. The router remains the gateway for your network, 192.168.1.1. It does the load balancing internally.

ahh.. that clarifies a bit.. I was thinking the router would see each WAN connection as a seperate gateway, but what you say makes sense; although, if I had 2 routers setup as cyberskye suggested, then I would pretty much have 2 networks. I'd like to stay away from that if possible..

zxc47 · Post by **zxc47** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:40 pm

zxc47, what type of connections are you using on your pro800 turbo? How in depth are the firewall settings on the pro800 turbo? SPI? (I'll go check out the specs for that) Does the pro800 keep a decent firewall log?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am on cable, My isp is roadrunner, I only have one modem but I have two ip's. The way I have it set up is from the modem to a switch and two cross over cable to the router's two wan ports.I have no need for two modem because with roadrunner I have 3000/down and 384 /up.The nexland does not have a firewall log it is like most router 's . It uses sub net ip's and that what they call a firewall.But I do run a firewall program on each computer that log's and I can block ip's. I run Black Ice

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:14 pm

found this on a review site for the pro800 turbo..

"... the Pro800 Turbo will bind the bandwidth on your two connections! It accomplishes this by sending network packets to both WAN ports based on what you specify it to in your configuration. In addition, you can bind hosts to a single WAN port. Obviously, any single download will not exceed the maximum bandwidth available on a single WAN, but the overall effect of this binding is that the entire network experiences vastly improved performance. "

this is sorta like what I was hoping for..

Anything else besides the Symantec 200 &/or Nexland pro800 Turbo to consider?

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:25 pm

Originally posted by zxc47
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am on cable, My isp is roadrunner, I only have one modem but I have two ip's. The way I have it set up is from the modem to a switch and two cross over cable to the router's two wan ports.I have no need for two modem because with roadrunner I have 3000/down and 384 /up.The nexland does not have a firewall log it is like most router 's . It uses sub net ip's and that what they call a firewall.But I do run a firewall program on each computer that log's and I can block ip's. I run Black Ice

thanks zxc47, your setup sounds different but I see what your saying.. I have roadrunner via Bright House and I'm not sure what my speed caps are,, I thought it was 2000/384 but maybe 3000/384? I haven't ran a speed test in a while but back when I did, I remember it saying my upload was 512! who knows.. I think the Adelphia PowerLink is 3000/384 but I'll find out for sure when I call them to set things up. Also I want to be sure I'm not violating any TOS agreements by having 2 different ISP's or anything like that. I'm also going to look into the prices of just increasing my cap on the roadrunner account. Maybe that would be more cost effective, although Adelphia is offering a pretty good deal with my HOA discount.

<<shakes head>>> ... so many things to consider, questions to ask, products to look up..
<<scurries back off to google>>>

qball15j · Post by **qball15j** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:34 am

http://www.hotbrick.com/

You may want to check out HotBrick, I personally haven't their products but they seem promising.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 3:10 pm

Originally posted by qball15j
http://www.hotbrick.com/

You may want to check out HotBrick, I personally haven't their products but they seem promising.

cool thanks for the link..
I've never heard of them before but the Firewall VPN 600/2 model doesn't sound too shabby..

Microsoft 98 · Post by **Microsoft 98** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 3:56 am

Or you can rent a server for max limit players price depends on how many players you want to join. Not too many in the U.S or canada more Dedicated Servers oversea's but you don't want that if all players are in north american. I know a few good sites that supprt your game u want them?