The router ispretty standard in NAT / Firewall / Port Forwarding and DHCP. It is interesting to note the Parallel Broadband feature. What this does is allow you to hook up other NetPassage routers to each other to perform a load balancing scheme to use on highly bandwidth intensive networks! This is a pretty neat bonus feature usually seen only in high-end routers! It's also interesting to note the unit has an internal clock which becomes very useful because you can set time limits or time of day when LAN clients can access the Internet. The router has built-in support for the usual applications, such as NetMeeting as well. PPPoE is on board for you lucky DSL users. Configuration can be done easily via the HTML browser based interface, or via telnet, if preferred. The unit does not have a console port, however the HTML based interface includes all the needed configuration features with the added bonus of being intuitive and completely user friendly.
After you get the router all hooked up, which the router manual goes beyond it's duty to help you, you will then log into the router with your Internal IP address by default that is 192.168.168.1 I have changed mine so that it is 192.168.1.1 since this is what I was used to with my Linksys router. Once you type that address in if everything is connected and setup in TCP/IP correctly then you will come to the Login screen... Here are some screenshots of the management interface:
The password is set to a default one which will let you login, after you are logged in you can of course change it. If you forget your password, simply refer to the manual.
As soon as you get logged in you will want to go to Router Identity and set your System Name (If on @Home it's your computer name, the c123456-a number for example). Note the Message Window, as you apply settings and such it shows what you've done. Also note you have to click on Reboot Router and reboot the router for the changes to take effect.
The system time setting, self-explanatory
Nice feature we've seen in newer routers, is the ability to clone your Network Adapter's MAC address...
Select if you want to assign Static or Dynamic IP, etc.
Here is where you want to setup for your LAN, on mine I have chosen to set my IP's Statically so I can forward Ports.
Filtering Configuration. Notice the Warning ? Nice reminder that "Incorrect configuration causes undesirable behavior"... Kind of obvious, when you think about it :)
It's Port Forwarding feature which is very convenient
You can even setup the Routing Table
System Information
These are just some of the major menus in the router's GUI interface. There are even more in the router which I do not have room to show, there is a Remote Management menu, a Rebooting menu, an Easy Firmware Upgrade Menu and a Router Save Settings menu which I DO have to show you because I like it a lot and think it's an excellent feature.
From here you can save your Router's current Configuration so that if you change settings you can always restore what you had before. You can do a quick Backup of the routers configuration as well. And you can restore the configuration from a saved file on your hard drive of the router. Or you can clear and rest it to factory defaults. These are all great features to have for anyone who is worried about changing their settings and forgetting what you had set previously.
Can we say Feature Rich? Yep, so far this router has it all. Lets see how it performs now...
