How To: One Internet connection - Two Private LANs

Published on November 12, 2003 to Networking

There are times when having two separate networks - both sharing the same Internet connection - can come in handy. For example, I recently helped a community center with its network setup. They needed to provide Internet connection to tenants who were renting space, in addition to their own shared Internet. They also shared a number of folders on the network, but weren't too careful about password protecting the shares. Read more

"One-Touch" Wireless Security - Buffalo Technology's AOSS vs. Linksys' SecureEasySetup

Published on June 21, 2005 to Networking

Push-button wireless security setup holds the promise of enabling mere mortals to quickly and easily lock down their wireless LANs. We examine two technologies with similar goals and find them more alike than different. Read more

How To: Getting VPN to work through NAT firewalls

Published on May 20, 2003 to Networking

With the rising popularity of telecommuting and the increasing need to protect their electronic assets, companies large and small have been turning to Virtual Private Networking (VPN). The good news is that many savvy IT departments realize that many of their telecommuting employees share their broadband connections with consumer-grade routers. Those folks have made their lives easier by using "NAT friendly" VPN gateways and VPN clients that don't require any changes to home users' router settings in order to successfully set up a VPN tunnel. Read more

How We Test SPI+NAT Routers

Published on October 18, 2002 to Networking

Some consumer-focused routers have for some time claimed to use Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) in their firewalls. But the recent generation of boxes based on the ADMtek 5106 Home Gateway Controller, (which was purchased by Conexant and is now the Conexant CX84200 Network Processor) seem to really be using SPI, or at least, doing something differently than their previously-released brethren. The telltale signs of this new generation of routers seem to be a significant reduction in measured throughput when the LAN test client is put in the router's DMZ, and problems in completing UDP streaming tests under normal Qcheck test conditions. Read more

Two Drives Are Better Than One: Thecus YES Box N2100

Published on June 6, 2006 to Networking

RAID Level 1 isn't as robust as RAID5, but requires only two drives and can cost significantly less. Jim Buzbee took Thecus' two-SATA drive N2100 for a spin and found a lot to like. Read more