2. Setup, Admin & Use

The 300g's comes configured as an access point that will automatically pick up an IP address from your LAN's DHCP server (although ASUS' printed Quick Start Guide says the default IP is 192.168.1.1). But if you can't find it by looking at your DHCP server's client list, you can install the Windows-based Utility, which will find the AP and let you connect to it for configuration.

Figure 2: Quick Setup screen
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

There are lots of nice touches in the admin interface, such as the pop-up help shown in Figure 2. There are no visual clues to let you know the help is there, but rolling your mouse cursor over most menu items will reveal concise, useful information about the setting. Note that this worked even with Mozilla, which has become my default brower.

The interface is generally responsive, and you can use either the Quick Setup feature or manually access the settings you need. Saving changes takes some getting used to, though.

The Save button on each page doesn't really put your changes into effect - you need to click the Finish button for that. Once you click Finish, applying changes requires a minute-or-so reboot, with the browser automatically refreshing when the 300g is back up.

Although I quickly adjusted to this two-step system, I found a couple of cases in which I didn't realize I needed to "Finish", and did some head-scratching until I figured it out.

Figure 3: Wireless Bridge setup
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Another feature from the why-hasn't-anyone-else-done-this-before category is found in the Wireless Bridging setup. The concept of a wireless bridge is somewhat difficult for novices and most manufacturers supply confusing setup instructions, or none at all.

ASUS's bridging setup page has both pop-up help and an animated graphic that changes to illustrate the mode being selected! Figure 3 shows the Hybrid mode (I'd have preferred to see this called Repeating), but no matter what it's called, the diagram clearly indicates what the mode does. Kudos ASUS! (Note that I didn't check out the Bridging features.)

Security is pretty well covered with Open System and Shared Key, Shared Key, WPA (Enterprise), WPA-PSK, and 802.1x with RADIUS authentication modes supported. Encryption levels are 64 and 128bit WEP and both the standard TKIP and optional AES encryption available when either WPA mode is used. Both the WPA and 802.1X modes require an external RADIUS server, which you can specify the IP address, port and "Connection Secret" for.

My main complaints are that although the Access Control List feature has both Accept and Deny modes, it doesn't show a list of associated clients or allow a pre-made list to be loaded in order to ease setup. And finally, I was disappointed to find only one monitoring feature, which lists the MAC address of associated clients and nothing else.

Wait, there's more!

As I said earlier, the 300g also can function as a router for wireless clients only. Clicking on the Home Gateway option on the System Setup > Operation Mode page morphs the interface into a different set of menus.

Figure 4: WAN and LAN Filters
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Figure 4 shows part of the WAN and LAN port filtering, which is schedulable. Filters can be defined for both Inbound and Outbound traffic in Accept or Deny mode and filter action logging can also be enabled. Schedulable URL keyword blocking is also offered.

Port forwarding can be set in in the Port Mapping and Virtual Server pages. But here, ASUS' documentation fails, not providing a good explanation of the difference between the two modes. A single DMZ server can also be set.

Unfortunately, as I tried to run a simple Qcheck test - which requires a number of ports to be opened - I found none of the port forwarding options worked! I also found that no Internet functions worked (by using domain names at least) until I entered my ISP's DNS server IP address into the 300g's DHCP server page. Apparently the 192.168.1.1 default DNS IP handed out wasn't getting my wireless client hooked up with real DNS info.

Once I corrected the DNS IP problem, I was able to access the Internet. But it's clear from the other problems I found, that routing is not the strongest feature of the 300g.

NOTE: Shortly before I posted this review, ASUS sent me 1.6.5.3 BETA firmware to replace the version 1.6.4.7 latest release firmware that I tested with to see if it cured some of the problems I was seeing. I'm happy to report that it cured my port forwarding problem and clarified the Port Mapping / Virtual confusion (Port Mapping is now Port Triggering with an entry for Trigger port).

I was also able to test routing throughput (via the wireless connection) and got 23Mbps LAN-WAN and 18Mbps WAN-LAN.