I recently needed to setup a home network to connect up a number of PCs and to allow both software and router based VPN’s.
The budget was low and the major factor in all this was stability .
It turned out that the broadband in was virgin media and that it was a 20mb service , and it also turned out to have a fault!!
When I arrived am on site I found an old battered netgear 824 v2 providing the network both wired and wirless with two WG606 access points providing other areas with print and internet access. The main problem was that the users kept getting cut off.
I checked each machines setup and the router setup which revealed that everything was as it should be. After about half an hour the internet suddenly went off line and only a cable modem reboot sorted it. I immediately placed a call with Virgin Media who tested the line and reported no issues!! After a fifteen minuet discussion they agreed to send out a new modem . The modem arrived the two days later and I fitted it together with a new ethernet cable from the modem to the router. We poered up the modem waited two minuets and then powered up the netgear . all the computers burst in to life and all was well – well at least for the first hour and then yes youve got there the internet died again !
After setting up the modem direct to one ethernet connection on a pc I spent an hour on the telephone to Virgin Media going through alsort to no avail. In the end they said they couldnt see a fault – this was to be repeated main days over the coming weeks. In the end because I had logged a few calls with them and because I managed to get through to the UK support team at Virgin one morning we actually got an NTL engineer out to site , who replaced the face plate ethernet cable and attenuator. He smiled braodly as he said that that should fix the problem .The laptop connected directly to the modem sprung in to life and then after ten minuets died again to the absolute disbelief of the NTL engineer , who by the way was a very decent chap who seemed to know what was waht and did eveything in his power to sort the problem out there and then.
He left about 30 mins later leaving his mobile number . The internet had been stable but he thought we might have further problems.
I ‘ll keep you posted on this ……
Now that we had (hopefully ) sorted out the internet connection I focused my attention on the software and hardware VPN requirements .
I had taken on the job because I hadnt really done it before and thought it would be interesting to review the available kit and then see how easy or hard it was to implement.
I reviewed alsorts of routers but finally choose a Netgear FVG318 54Mb wireless cable router with 8 VPN connections.
At ?85.00 all in it was a low cost solution which seemed to offer all we needed at the right price. The product was bought from a helpful chap at Insight via web and arrived the next day in good condition. THe chap even phoned the next day to ensure we had recieved the product which was very pleasing!
Ok so the router had arrived and now it was time to get down and configure it.
The first thing i did was to update the firmware to the current release and that went absoutley fine. I configured it via a laptop connected by ethernet cable. I then confiured its lan takiing the settings from the old router – it was extremely easy using the Netgear web interface, and the internet connection was found automatically without changing any settings. I then configured a MAC access control list , WPA-PSK security , and DHCP addresses for each machine – all very easy and very straight forward. I tested the configuration and there where no issues – 15 mins and I had a new router in place and working absolutley superb !I did a scan with the wireless Netsurveyor software to ensure no wireless interferance and it showed me channel 6 was free and ok. I then checked all the wirless adapters and confirmed all users where running in g mode and switched the router to wireless mode g only .The router is capbale of 108Mbps but all of the adapters only reported 54Mbps.I also had to move the external antenna around a bit to get the best beacon signal which did take about 10-15 minuets but was very worth while as it increased the signal from low to very good. I left the router running like this for a day and no problems where reported . I went back the next day and looked at the VPN pass through which had been setup.We started it and it worked first time no issues and the connection was there and fast! .
Next I looked at the VPN setup on the Netgear going to another router . I tried to set this set up manually as I new all the settings – it would not work at all so I tried using the Netgear Wizard – it worked first time but all the settings where the same ! I don’t know why the manually setup of the VPN did not work but the wizard certainly worked and the VPN works a treat.
I then installed the new purchased AV product for each machine updated it and then did a windows update on each machine to ensure they where all patched up to date
I rebooted all the machines and then left them for two days to see how they got on , and gladly there have been no issues.
Now for the really reaosn for the topic……
Could anyone advise me on these points:
1. I would now like to remote manage this router just to check to see who its doing but I dont want to sit in front of it. The router is SNMP capable so is there a piece of software I can use to record / monitor it over vpn tunnel and then review this information ?
2 One of the last issues is that one of the users has asked if they can stream HD video to one machine – can I attach a draft n wirelss access point to the router by ethernet and then give the user a draft n access point so they can achieve this ?
3 Any recommendations on draft n wireless access points would be welcome