VPN support in an ADSL router?

A friend has a few PCs at home (ADSL, dynamic IP) and a
number of others at his shop (ADSL, fixed IP) and wants
to be able to link the two (mostly for file sharing for
images and data on his shop website). He's wanting the
home (office) PC to fit into the shop network, and will
want to access a number of different machines.

Anyone know if any routers can act as the VPN host such
that he doesn't need any particular PC at the shop kept
on to allow access from home, please? I've seen plenty
which support VPN (but I assume these merely allow user
to stablish VPN connections out to other services which
is obviously needed from his home, but it's what to use
at the shop that's in question. He has wireless in use
though if there's a specific router which doesn't offer
it, but can serve as a VPN host then he would switch to
data-over-main for access on the upper floor of shop.

Yes, I know that there's OpenVPN (though not sure it is
ideal - he'd like to be able to switch PCs off, but NAS
box left on in shop, and access that from home, so that
would not be suitable for running OpenVPN).

Any other options welcome, please! Thanks in advance.

NoMailWanted wrote:
>
> Anyone know if any routers can act as the VPN host such
> that he doesn't need any particular PC at the shop kept
> on to allow access from home, please?

Take a look at Draytek routers if the budget will allow.

I use a Draytek 2910 as a VPN host at one address.

HTH

Kalyana wrote:
> NoMailWanted wrote:
>>
>> Anyone know if any routers can act as the VPN host such
>> that he doesn't need any particular PC at the shop kept
>> on to allow access from home, please?
>
> Take a look at Draytek routers if the budget will allow.
>
> I use a Draytek 2910 as a VPN host at one address.
>
> HTH

AIUI the 2910 doesn't do ADSL, has a limited max firewall throughput
15Mb/s and is expensive. I have heard the Draytek's offer enhanced
configurability but I'm surprised at how many people recommend them. The
only real selling point for this router appears to be the dual wan load
balancing.

The netgear DG384 is cheap 1/3 the price of the draytek, handles VPN end
points and is an ADSL router.

Mark McIntyre wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>>
>> The netgear DG384 is cheap 1/3 the price of the draytek, handles VPN
>> end points and is an ADSL router.
>
> He needs a router that is a VPN server though. Don't think the 384 does
> that.
> Also, ahem, there's a reason Netgear are cheap.

I have a DG834G v1 which has been rock solid for 5 years and a DG834 v3
which has been rock solid for 2+ years. By VPN server I presume he meant
VPN end point capability which the DG834 (v1 and v3) has, it works. VPN
is reasonably solid although I only ran it for a week or two. So I can't
guarantee the VPN is not problematic.

Why do you think the netgear is cheap?

I also have a DG834N v1 which is indeed a turkey when it comes to basic
routing and does not have the VPN stuff, it cost twice the price of the
basic DG834.

In article <h1id6d$fup$(E-Mail Removed)>,
www.GymRatZ.co.uk <discount-fitness-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Nick wrote:
>>
>> AIUI the 2910 doesn't do ADSL,
>Oh!
>You best tell my 2910's that then. I have one in the shop with 2 x ADSL
>(BeThere & UKonline) connections acting as VPN host and I have one 2910
>at home running an ADSL connection (O2).The 2 have a permanant VPN
>between them and the one at home also runs 2 VOIP phone lines.

The 2910 does not do ADSL natively. None of the 29xx series do. They have
Ethernet ports which can act as a pure Ethernet router (good for Cable,
LAN bridging, etc.), or with suitable external ADSL modems acting as a
PPPoA to PPPoE media convertor, can talk to ADSL lines.

You probably have separate ADSL modems connecting in to it.

Gordon

www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>> AIUI the 2910 doesn't do ADSL,
> Oh!
> You best tell my 2910's that then. I have one in the shop with 2 x ADSL
> (BeThere & UKonline) connections acting as VPN host and I have one 2910
> at home running an ADSL connection (O2).The 2 have a permanant VPN
> between them and the one at home also runs 2 VOIP phone lines.
>
>> has a limited max firewall throughput 15Mb/s
> Who told you that as it's incorrect

Draytek actually http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2910.html

click on the Comparison tab at the bottom.

Strange that Draytek would be wrong about the ADSL capability and the
firewall throughput.

[snip]


> AND the 2910 not having an inbuilt modem means you can use the supplied
> service providers router in bridged mode which in the case of Bethere
> and O2 gives superb speeds.
>
So it doesn't do ADSL?

www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>>
>> Strange that Draytek would be wrong about the ADSL capability and the
>> firewall throughput.
> Well, if it's got PPPoE or PPPoA or Static/Dynamic IP client and connect
> through ISP supplied bridged modem then it _does_ do ADSL as well as cable.
>
No it acts a a firewall and router but it does not do ADSL, The modem
does ADSL. Yes it can work with an ADSL modem but this is not what the
vast majority of people refer to as an ADSL router. If you use language
differently from other people it is likely that you will mislead people.



> And the Firewall speed is completely wrong. I will admit that if you
> use a Draytek V100 or V110 modem then yes, I found these dedicated ADSL
> modems are restrictive, but the router it's self has absolutely no
> problem with 20+ Mbps
> http://www.speedtest.net/rank/1314311024.png
> (From when I could be bothered to check)
> http://www.speedtest.net/result/500090134.png this was run from from the
> shop PC over VPN here at home so speed is a little down on what it would
> be if I wasn't doing it remotely. (Just to prove a point that it is
> running through the Router)
> Certainly doesn't seem to be struggling to me !

When I looked at these routers I was looking at putting them on a
VirginMedia 20 MB/s line. I didn't get it because of the 15 Mb/s
firewall throughput figures that Draytek quoted.

You posted some very impressive speedtest results however I suspect at
least one of them is from a dual line connection which doesn't prove
that the router could handle a 20 Mb/s line. Are you implying that you
believe the router would work at 20 Mb/s on a single connection with the
firewall on? Because if you aren't I think that once again your post is
misleading.





>> So it doesn't do ADSL?
> It is ADSL Compatible. (But you need a simple external modem) Is that
> better?

Yes that is good. Remember a lot of people reading these groups don't
understand a lot of stuff, myself especially, so it is helpful if we try
to spell stuff out. I can't tell you the number of bits of kit I have
bought only to realise afterwards they didn't work in quite the way I
expected.

www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:

> Nick wrote:

>> Strange that Draytek would be wrong about the ADSL capability and the
>> firewall throughput.
> Well, if it's got PPPoE or PPPoA or Static/Dynamic IP client and connect
> through ISP supplied bridged modem then it _does_ do ADSL as well as
> cable.

That's like saying my PC does 10Gb ethernet, because the BT exchange I'm
connected to is backhauled with 10Gb ethernet. Thoroughly confusing, if not
misleading.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
10:05:32 up 45 days, 16:13, 2 users, load average: 0.60, 0.28, 0.20
A few flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction

www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:

> I have a dual WAN set up un the router but you can't shotgun 2 seperate
> IP addresses and the speed test result only show for a single IP
> address. However that isn't an issue as I have dual WAN for ISP
> redundancey which is why I have Be/O2 as main ISP and a 2Mbps secondary
> connection on WAN2 through UK Online which only kicks into life when WAN
> 1 goes down. No load balancing between Wan 1 & 2 as WAN 2 stays down
> until required.
>

Ah, you showed a speedtest download speed of 25.83 Mb/s from BE. I
hadn't realised it was possible to get such a high speed from a single
connection. That's why I though there must be some type of line bonding.

Mark McIntyre wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>> Mark McIntyre wrote:
>>> Also, ahem, there's a reason Netgear are cheap.
>>
>> I have a DG834G v1 which has been rock solid for 5 years and a DG834
>> v3 which has been rock solid for 2+ years.
>
> That's as may be. They're still not Cisco. And to be clear, it wasn't a
> criticism - I have a no-name wireless router doing sterling service
> right now. I also have kit by dlink, linksys and others, all cheap
> consumer stuff.
>
>> VPN end point capability which the DG834 (v1 and v3) has,
>
> Not according to the spec I read on netgear's website, though that could
> well be wrong.
>

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/de...lkL1VWVHBJWkFq




>> Why do you think the netgear is cheap?
>
> The question doesn't compute. Netgear kit is cheap because its inexpensive.
>

You said there was a reason the Netgear was cheap I wondered what you meant?