3. Setup and Administration

The FR24 can be administrated either via web browser or through a menu-driven Telnet interface. Although I confirmed that the Telnet interface worked from the LAN side of the router, I focused on the web interface. Pointing your browser to the default address of 192.168.1.1 brings up a login box that requires both a user name and password to be entered before it presents you with the Status screen shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Status screen
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Although the screen shot doesn't show it, this screen shows you information for both WAN ports and lets you perform both an IP address Release / Renew and PPPoE Connect / Disconnect on each WAN port.

The FR24 allows multiple simultaneous administrator logins and provides no warning on additional logins. There's no admin logout besides quitting your browser, and no admin idle timeout either. The overall responsiveness of the web interface was satisfactory with quick navigation from screen to screen. Some changes require a quick (about 10-15 second) reboot, while others don't. Remote administration can be enabled (it's off by default), and you can set the admin interface port number, but can't restrict access to specific IP addresses. You can also reboot the router, or force it to reload factory defaults via selections in the System Tools section, and save and restore router configuration to / from a local file.

Clicking on Setup Wizard in the top menu bar gives you the option of stepping through each of the setup screens by clicking on a Next button (after making your entries, of course!), or navigating directly to the desired screen by using the links in the left-hand column. The Setup LAN IP screen is where you set the base address, subnet mask and gateway IP address information for the router. You can also disable the router NAT (Internet sharing) function and set the port number for the router's HTTP (web) admin interface. Note that the DHCP server controls are not located here, but in the Advanced Setup section. You can set four different DHCP ranges and reserve IP addresses by MAC address, but you can't set DHCP lease time or force lease terminations to disconnect unwanted clients.

The Primary WAN screen makes you choose among Static IP Address, Dynamic IP Address, and PPPoE connection types, then presents you with a setup screen that has the appropriate setup parameters. Figure 2 shows the PPPoE screen for the Primary WAN.

Figure 2: Primary WAN PPPoE screen
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Note that you can change the Maximum Segment Size (MSS) vs. the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) that most other routers provide as part of their PPPoE setup parameters. (A general conversion equation is MSS = MTU-40.) In all, the FR24 provides pretty much all the WAN setup controls that you'll need.