Ok, I'll kick this discussion off, but there are better people then I to take advice from on this.
If you have a spare computer with at least two nic cards there are a number of weird firewall router projects out their. Most of the weird appliances are "Ok" but not great (unless you are getting a netlink $40 special then it's not even OK) but you want to make sure they have the features you want. I used to recommend netgear FVS appliances, but mine is dying on me after only three years, so no love their.
As for wireless, I would recommend getting something you can flash wrt if you want more control latter. Maybe a Linksys WRT54G?
The question I have is what do you want to do? Wired is nice, I do nothing but, then again I have no issue snaking wires (in the winter only). Then again, wierless is convenyant if you want to surf on the couch and be wier free. I relay like to use VPNs so it is on my list but it may not be on yours. My list is fairly short
* Does port forwarding (I think they all do now)
* Does NAT (Again, they all do)
* Does Static Routes (Important for me, but not most people)
* Does Statefull inspection (Most do this, and it's only important if you use packet intrusion security or use things like IPSec)
* Does not break IPSec/PFS/L2PT/Etc. (see above)
* Does custom black listing (Not that many appliances do but I go slightly hammed down for thinking extensive black listing was a good idea, perhaps it is not)
* Prevents DoS (Syn flood, ICMP flood, UDP flood, port scans,
“ping of death,” IP spoofing, land attack, tear drop attack, IP
address sweep attack, Win Nuke attack, etc. Most appliance routers do this.)
* Does intrusion detection, preferably with email alerts (Again important for the paranoid and most appliances do this.)
* GUI configuration (Important for the noob and very nice for the rest of us)
* QoS (Unless you streaming movies or on a voip call while surfing and download files this may not be important, and configuring it canslow down the router casuing incresed delay)
* DHCP (I think they all do this)
* IAC (Outbound rules, some do, som don;t. Is it important to have your router define what can leve your network?)
* SNMP2 (Proabbly not important for you)
* Decent logging/reporting (What is decent for me may be more then adiqaute for you)
* GUI Dashboard (It's nice, but totaly not necacery)
* DynDNS (Only important you have dynamic DNS hosting and your IP changes frequently)
* Web content filtering (Only if you have kids and want to block all content containing certain items at the router)
* DNS Proxy (Not that important)
* Black list service (Again, thier was a debate on if black listing should be done as a first line of defence, I think my oipinon of it being goood was outranked by those smarter then I)
-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Robert Holtzman
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:54 PM
To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: router opinions wanted
Total noob wrt networks. I'm about to dive into setting up a home LAN and could use some opinions/advise/warnings/ideas about routers. Not sure yet whether the LAN will be wireless or not.
Any routers to look for? Any to avoid?
Is it possible to disable a wireless router's transmitter and use it with cable? I thought I might like to try it as hard wired but retain the capability of going wireless later. I've run a lot of searches on this question and haven't seen anything.
--
Bob Holtzman
"If you think you're getting free lunch,
check the price of the beer"
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