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This review is from : Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router
Product is pretty good documentation falls short . I purchased this device just a few days ago. Until yesterday itwas only operating as a 8-port switch. Today I found themagic bullet. Now it is working great!My ISP uses my MAC address to limit my use of their bandwidthto one machine. While setting up the RO318, I found there weretwo MAC addresses printed on the back. This made sense becausethere is one for local (LAN) traffic and another for internet(WAN) traffic. I had my ISP change the MAC address for me to the first address and fired everything up. I did everything butstand on my head but I couldn't get my router to obtain an IPaddress using DHCP from my ISP.-- I briefly tried doing the IP/MAC spoof, but with my networkconfiguration, it really would not have worked. --It seems the documentation doesn't mention that the first MACaddress is for the LAN and the second is for the WAN. I justthought it was the other order. Nothing in the documentationmentions this minor detail and the support techs know nothingabout it. I discovered this after telneting to the router andlisting out the ARP table. It was very clear after doing thisstep which MAC went where.Once I had my ISP change my MAC address again, the router gotthe IP address from my ISP's DHCP server and everything workedas it should have. One other sore point I'm looking to address. My ISP (wireless)has connection checks that come from the towers in the form ofa "spoof" attempt according to the RO318. This triggers aboatload of e-mail as this is considered a "Security Alert".I'm looking into the configuration commands available throughthe telnet interface, I hope to resolve this soon.
Product is pretty good documentation falls short . I purchased this device just a few days ago. Until yesterday itwas only operating as a 8-port switch. Today I found themagic bullet. Now it is working great!My ISP uses my MAC address to limit my use of their bandwidthto one machine. While setting up the RO318, I found there weretwo MAC addresses printed on the back. This made sense becausethere is one for local (LAN) traffic and another for internet(WAN) traffic. I had my ISP change the MAC address for me to the first address and fired everything up. I did everything butstand on my head but I couldn't get my router to obtain an IPaddress using DHCP from my ISP.-- I briefly tried doing the IP/MAC spoof, but with my networkconfiguration, it really would not have worked. --It seems the documentation doesn't mention that the first MACaddress is for the LAN and the second is for the WAN. I justthought it was the other order. Nothing in the documentationmentions this minor detail and the support techs know nothingabout it. I discovered this after telneting to the router andlisting out the ARP table. It was very clear after doing thisstep which MAC went where.Once I had my ISP change my MAC address again, the router gotthe IP address from my ISP's DHCP server and everything workedas it should have. One other sore point I'm looking to address. My ISP (wireless)has connection checks that come from the towers in the form ofa "spoof" attempt according to the RO318. This triggers aboatload of e-mail as this is considered a "Security Alert".I'm looking into the configuration commands available throughthe telnet interface, I hope to resolve this soon.
Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router Reviews
Good protection easy to use and reliable . We are a Netgear home-office. We upgraded to the RO318 security router from the Netgear FS108 ethernet bridge and have been happy ever since.We chose this router to free up our main office computer from duty as the internet server to our network. With this piece of gear our high speed DSL connection goes directly to the router which in turn acts as a great little network server to our 7 hardwired workstations plus an additional 3 on a wireless sub-system. Once we were set up, we've never had to worry about anything else.We used the web-browser based set-up feature which was really easy to use and only took a few minutes. You need to know and have your various DSL settings ready such as static IP address etc.The firewall is effective and configurable to send an email alert when an attack is detected. The additional feature I love is the integrated keyword or address-based (www. ..) web filter....You can easily configure it to send you a report of attempts to access inappropriate sites.This is a great little piece of equipment that has a lot of useful features for the small office or home network.
Good protection easy to use and reliable . We are a Netgear home-office. We upgraded to the RO318 security router from the Netgear FS108 ethernet bridge and have been happy ever since.We chose this router to free up our main office computer from duty as the internet server to our network. With this piece of gear our high speed DSL connection goes directly to the router which in turn acts as a great little network server to our 7 hardwired workstations plus an additional 3 on a wireless sub-system. Once we were set up, we've never had to worry about anything else.We used the web-browser based set-up feature which was really easy to use and only took a few minutes. You need to know and have your various DSL settings ready such as static IP address etc.The firewall is effective and configurable to send an email alert when an attack is detected. The additional feature I love is the integrated keyword or address-based (www. ..) web filter....You can easily configure it to send you a report of attempts to access inappropriate sites.This is a great little piece of equipment that has a lot of useful features for the small office or home network.
Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router Opinions
Good Firewall Poor Support . I tend to like NetGear products. I own several of their switches and earlier firewalls including the RT-311. However, the RO318 has been a mixed bag.Sure you get stateful packet inspection, web based management and e-mail alerts. However, you can not turn off content based alerts without also turning off security alerts.Worse, the code is buggy (particularly the static routes which do not work) and NetGear support seems helpless to fix the problems. I've been working with their top level technical support for several weeks on the static route bug. I get lots of assurances of immediate answers, but just as many ignored phone calls and messages. In truth, it appears that they have no solution to offer.Purchase with caution.
Good Firewall Poor Support . I tend to like NetGear products. I own several of their switches and earlier firewalls including the RT-311. However, the RO318 has been a mixed bag.Sure you get stateful packet inspection, web based management and e-mail alerts. However, you can not turn off content based alerts without also turning off security alerts.Worse, the code is buggy (particularly the static routes which do not work) and NetGear support seems helpless to fix the problems. I've been working with their top level technical support for several weeks on the static route bug. I get lots of assurances of immediate answers, but just as many ignored phone calls and messages. In truth, it appears that they have no solution to offer.Purchase with caution.
Flawless efficient and easy-to-use. Highly recommended. . Here's the summary of my experience with this unit (3+ months). In these months, there' never been any need to touch the router AT ALL. This baby becomes INVISIBLE as far as your network hassles... After you've decided to get this router, make sure you upgrade the firmware to the latest available from netgear.1. Installation is very easy. The user interface is web-browser based and in five minutes you are set to go. The DHCP server in the router OS handles my ethernet cards from various vendors very well. I have used xircom, netgear, 3Com, Melco/Buffalo, and Dell (rebranded 3Com) cards, plus the Trendnet CompactFlash ethernet card (for my Ipaq PocketPC). All work smoothly with this unit.2. The router is extremely fast. On my cable modem connection, I regularly get speeds of 1.5 Mbps which are limited by the cable provider's setup, NOT by the RO318 router.3. It has EIGHT ethernet ports. You may quickly find that the four ports on the popular router models are quickly taken and you are left wishing you had more than four.4. The ethernet LAN ports are SWITCHED, not hub-based which means FASTER connection speeds.5. I don't know about you, but I like a well-designed box. This unit looks and feels very elegant, sturdy and solid.6. For the more technically advanced user, there IS a telnet based command-line configuration interface.... You can read more about its security capabilities at the review....I recommend this routher without any reservations whatsoever. It's the best bang for the buck.In closing I must say I am surprised by the other reviewer who seems to have missed all that's good and useful in this router, which is what 99.9% of users need (and the rest 0.1% can live with quite comfortably).
Very nice product... . This was an excellent product for the money. The 8 port 10/100 hub performs beautifully on my LAN and I have had ZERO problems with this box. The DHCP server is solid and responds to DHCP requests on all of my Windows and Solaris machines. Firewall capabilities are good although the limit of 10 port forwarding settings could eventually become an issue.For the money, you can't go wrong with the functionality and the quality of this device.
Problems if running a DNS/DHCP server . The RO318 works wonderfully--if you let it be the DHCP server--but I run a Windows 2000 server acting as DHCP/DNS server for the domain. If you disable the RO318's DHCP you can no longer plug in the WAN's (ISP) pri/sec DNS servers. You have no control over the external DNS servers being used, and the DNS entries are not past to the clients (ipconfig/all just brings up the router's IP for DNS, whereas if the RO318's DHCP is used ipconfig/all shows the ISP DNS servers). In my opinion that is serious bug/oversight...I pointed this out as an issue to support. In addition to limiting your control to your ISP configuration, it interfers with Active Directory's communication to the clients (W2K-SP2):"Event ID 1000; Source: Userenv; Windows cannot determine the user or computer name. Return value (1722)." You can still ping boxes on the domain, and use UNC path to them, but run into problems when adding users into groups (policy problems/domain can't be reached). Issue is that certain elements of the LAN traffic are not being routed to the internal DNS server through the router. Work around is to hard code into the clients the IP for the internal DNS server...which of course means you can no longer access the internet, so you're faced with modifying the clients in order to accomplish certain tasks.In my opinion if your not running a server on your LAN this is a very fine piece of hardware, but if you are, or your planning to, you might look to other hardware. I have on order the Linksys BEFSR81 now in hopes that it will do a better job in a server/client config. Hope that helps somebody out there. >:~) Peace.
Good product missing some features . It works well as a statefull firewall. What it is missing: The ability to block inbound (or outbound) ip addresses/ranges. I had a few spammers touching my server > 1 per min - it would have been nice if I could block them at the firewall.
Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router . I design Networks for a living, and so I have some pretty high expectations for any device I would have to spend my money on. The Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router meets those and more.Since I was getting home broadband for the first time, I researched both DSL and Cable before deciding on cable. Higher speeds were a draw, the arguments about being a shared media are lame - all networks are eventually a shared media, and the security issues workable. Finally, the grief and agony of DSL installs are things of legend, as is their (lack of) reliability.Installing the router was a breeze, although it wouldn't fit the space available in my enclosure, so I mounted it to a plywood backpanel along with filtered power for the 'wall wart' power supply.A quick visit to the local RJ-45 store for a bag of premade 1M cables, to do cross connects to my cable plant, and we're ready to power up. All green. Even the crossover requirement for the modem is accomodated by using the "Internet" connector on the R0-318.Next, run the Cable modem software provided by AT&T broadband. Totally uneventful. Although I did have to reboot my system 4 times, my interaction was pretty much limited to operating the Enter key, and the IP config was done on my trusty Thinkpad.Finally, run the RO318 software. Since the AT&T software had already detected the router, all the basic settings were either done or DHCP'd and I was up and running. To date my slowest downloads have been ~75K (600KBPS) and I have seen almost 200K (that's T-1+!) on several occaisions. No crashes. Since I'm not a gamer, I can't comment on what in a game could possibly cause a router to crash (Layer 3 vs Layer 7 on the OSI model and all that), but having downloads at home that are faster than our very industrial, load balanced, Checkpointed, redundant T-3 internet access at work has certainly put a grin on my face. And, having experienced zero downtime in the two week I've been operating is pretty happening as well.HTTPing into the advance firewall setup is a pleasant surprise, although if you don't understand the impact of blocking or opening specific IP ports, be happy to look, and don't touch.Overall, this is a great device. I'm thinking about running one through our lab to really load it down and see how it handle s major stress, then having a CISSP review what the firewall and VPN passthrough (necessary for LargeCo teleworkers). Considering that it's commercial equivalent could easily cost $30 to $40 thousand, the Netgear RO318 is a screaming deal.
Very nice product... . This was an excellent product for the money. The 8 port 10/100 hub performs beautifully on my LAN and I have had ZERO problems with this box. The DHCP server is solid and responds to DHCP requests on all of my Windows and Solaris machines. Firewall capabilities are good although the limit of 10 port forwarding settings could eventually become an issue.For the money, you can't go wrong with the functionality and the quality of this device.
Cons Review
Poor Interface . It seems like a good router with lots of features. BUT Netgear is the first to acknowledge that the GUI is only for basic setup (see their web site). The advanced features are setup using a nasty telnet command line interface. I put up with Windows based PCs because I WANT to use a GUI. When I buy a $... router for home I expect one too. This unit doen't even support Netgear's usual telnet menu interface, its command line all the way. So after 20 minutes of fighting the command line to setup a mac address (required by my ISP) I still can't get it to work. A simple text input GUI interface is all that is required ... but no I am swimming though text commands. The GUI can "spoof" a mac address from another PC. The problem is the hardware that my ISP got my mac address from is long gone. In conclusion, the market for this type of hardware is filling up quickly. I'd pass this one up for one with a reasonable way to setup all the features. After all, if all I wanted was a bottom of the line router, I'd have bought one (for $... less).
Feature Netgear RO318 DSL/Cable Internet Security Router
- Provides eight 10/100 Mbps ports for connecting PCs or other devices on the LAN
- Includes a cable/DSL Ethernet port for Internet access sharing
- Features Stateful Packet Inspection and Denial of Service protection
- E-mail reports and alerts on hacker attempts and browsing activities
- 5-year warranty
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Product Details
EAN : 0606449021998UPC : 606449021998
MPN : RO318
Brand : Netgear
Weight : 6 pounds
Height : 5 inches
Length : 12 inches
Width : 10 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : Netgear
Model : RO318
Platform : Windows NT
Publisher : Netgear
Studio : Netgear
Where To Buy
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