Befrs41: Cisco-Linksys BEFSR41 EtherFast Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port 10/100 Switch : Electronics

30 декабря, 2022

Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router, Model BEFSR41

Tech —

A breif rundown and a setup walkthrough of the Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL …

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Introduction

Manufacturer: Linksys
‘Net price: ~$150
Rating: 8

After reading Ator’s excellent home-networking installation guide, I started to realize how dysfunctional my home network was. Up to this point, I was relying on a dual-NIC configured Win2K box running the (very good) Wingate connection-sharing software. I had one NIC going out to the Internet (via my 1Mbps DSL modem), and the other NIC going directly to a Win98-based laptop, which ran the Wingate client.

Recently, I’ve added a Linux/WinCE box and an Amiga 3000 system, both configured with Ethernet connectivity. I wanted to be able to have a LAN running between all four machines, and adding additional NIC cards to my Win2K box was now out of the question. Additionally, I wanted these machines to be able to share my Internet connection. Obviously, I needed a router and a hub. Luckily, Linksys provides both a router and hub combination in one device, along with NAT/DHCP/firewall functionality.

After considering the Netgear RT311 Internet Access Gateway Router (I hadn’t discovered the Netgear RT314), and the D-Link DI-701 Gateway/Firewall, I settled on the Linksys model reviewed here. Why?

Overview of Features

The Linksys BEFSR41 has the following feature-set:

  • NAT functionality, allowing multiple IP-addresses on the private LAN to
    access the Internet over a single connection.
  • Built-in firewall via port-inspection/blocking.
  • 10Mbps connection speed to the Internet (IEEE 802.3 10BaseT).
  • Built-in 10/100Mbps four-port switch (IEEE 802. 3 10BaseT, 802.3u
    100BaseTX). Devices on the LAN which are
    equipped with 100Mbps NICs can communicate with each-other at maximum speed,
    while Internet communications occur at a maximum of 10Mbps.
  • DHCP client functionality built-in, for configurations where the Internet
    connection’s IP-address is dynamically assigned.
  • DHCP server functionality built-in, with up to 253 DHCP-assigned
    IP-addresses.
  • PPPoE support (not tested).
  • Up-link port for secondary switches/hubs (like the $30 Linksys EtherFast
    5-port Switch), or connection to the cool (but overpriced) Linksys EFG20
    20GB Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with built-in print-server
    functionality.
  • Supports a De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) for a single LAN-based computer.
  • Blocking of specific LAN-based computers from Internet access (great for
    when Junior has misbehaved).

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Comparison of Features

Features Linksys BEFSR41 D-Link DI-701 Netgear RT311/RT314
Price ~ $150 $90 $120/$160
Built-in Switch or Hub? Yes No (add $50) No/Yes
Supports VPN/PPTP? Yes Maybe Yes with configuration
Graphical Configuration Tool? HTTP-based Requires Windows HTTP-based
Stackable? Yes Sort of Yes

 

What’s Included

  • Documentation:
    • User’s Manual
    • FAQ Sheet
    • Quick Installation Sheet
    • Product Registration Card
  • Cables:
    • Only a power-adapter and power-cable was included.
  • The Linksys BEFSR41 device

RTFM

The documentation is quite good. For the tech-savvy types that read Ars, the manual is MORE than adequate. For a complete computer beginner, I think the manual is quite good, and the setup/configuration is no more complicated than configuring Dial-Up Networking or the Network Control Panel stuff. Indeed, Linksys even provides a Quick Installation sheet which covers most of the common configurations (Win95/98 screen-shots), step-by-step. Still, there were some presentation issues that I’ll mention for the benefit of Linksys and as a warning to potential buyers: the use of bolding could have been better where it discusses certain features. Important information, e.g., like the fact that certain router features only work when the router is configured in non-DHCP mode, was often buried in the middle of a seemingly innocuous paragraph, where it could be easily overlooked. If you want to have a look at the docs, they’re available online from Linksys in PDF format.

Cabling

The power-cable is almost perfect, since it doesn’t terminate in a wall-wart the size of a brick. Instead, it consists of a small power-adapter that connects to the Linksys, and a standard 3-prong male-to-female power-cable that mates the power-adapter to the wall-socket.

Why did I say near-perfect, then? Because the cable on the power-adapter is too short compared to the 3-prong standard power-cable you attach. What tends to happen here, at least for me, is that the power-adapter ends up hanging in mid-air behind my desk, providing a pendulum-like weight which drags the router backwards towards the abyss. If the cable was longer, then the small brick could rest on the floor, and provide less drag on the back of the device.

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Look and Feel

The Linksys itself is fairly compact, although I believe it could have been smaller. Because of Linksys’ stackable format for many of their devices, they’re forced into following that form-factor. You can see from the picture on the left that the unit is relatively small, and it’s light—it weighs about 12 shots of tequila (12 ounces). Those indentations on the top of the device support the feet of other stackable Linksys devices.

While I think that the stackable format is uber-cool, I’ve noticed that Linksys has four incompatible stackable formats for their devices, which is ultra-crappy. The interesting 20-Gig NAS EFG20 won’t stack here, although it’ll happily stack with other EFG20 devices. The nice Keyboard/Video/Mouse (KVM) switches from linksys won’t stack here either (which is too bad, since I’m going to be buying one shortly). With such devotion to stackability, one might expect their products to stack better!

About the only devices you’ll be able to stack nicely with the BEFSR41 are the simple 5-port hub, 5-port switch, or the integrated 4-port switch and 2-port print-server device.

Front ‘n Back

The rear of the device sports the WAN connection to your external cable/DSL-modem, the four-port switch with uplink option, and the power connector. You can get a closer look by clicking here. The front of the device sports a number of useful LEDs, including:

  • Power — duh!
  • Link/Act (x4) — Solid-green indicates a connected device is powered-on,
    and flickering-green indicates RX/TX activity on that connection.
  • Full/Col (x4) — Solid-green indicates full-duplex connectivity, and
    flickering-green indicates collisions.
  • 100 (x4) — Orange indicates 100Mbps connection.
  • Link — Green indicates a successful connection between the Linksys and the
    cable/DSL-modem.
  • Act — Green-flickering indicates RX/TX activity to the cable/DSL-modem.
  • Diag — Red indicates self-diagnostics, and only appears briefly during
    boot-up.

Here’s a shot of the unit on my desk.

 

Linksys BEFSR41 Etherfast Cable/DSL Router (4 Port)

Author: Tim Higgins
Review Date: 1/9/2000

Model: BEFSR41

Pros: – Relatively Fast
– Widely available
– Includes 4 port 10/100Mbps switch.
Cons: – Ongoing firmware quality problems
– Tech support difficult to reach
– Difficult firmware upgrading w/MacOS. [See Note]

Review updates

2/5/02 New firmware 1.42.3

11/7/01 New firmware 1.40.2 supports Zone Alarm and PC-cillin, fixes DHCP problem, and more.

4/23/01 Port range mapping, port range filtering, and logging features added by 1.37 firmware. Updated pros and cons.

3/11/01 Reversed WAN and LAN results in the Performance Test chart.

2/25/01 Updated speed test info and Problems section.

10/10/00 Updated Summary and Problems sections.

8/14/00 A 30 day trial subscription to TZO.com’s Dynamic DNS service and 20% TZO discount offer now bundled.

7/11/00 Many features added by 1. 30.5 firmware.

7/8/00 Throuput finally measured. See review.

 

The Basics

The EtherFast is packaged in a very cool purple and gray box.  All RJ45 jacks (one WAN, 3 LAN, 1 shared LAN/Uplink) are on the rear panel of the unit, along with the power adapter input (the router is powered by a small external power unit).  No cables are included with the product.

A recessed reset button (nice touch, having it on the front panel), and a full complement of indicator lights is on the front panel including:

  • Power

  • WAN Link, Activity, & Diag
    (“Diag” lights if the unit malfunctions)

  • Link/Activity and Full/Col for each of the 4 built-in 10 / 100BaseT auto sensing, switched, ports
    (“Full/Col” lights steady if port is running full duplex. Flickers if collisions are detected on a port)

Yes, you read that right. This <$200 router includes a four port 10/100 full-duplex switch!  A first for this class of router!  So those speed freaks out there can pop this guy into their network and not worry about Mom’s web surfing slowing down their Quake death-matches.

NOTE: The 10/100 switch is on the LAN side only!  The WAN port is 10BaseT, since most broadband connections only run 1 to 1.5Mbps at best.  You’ll get 100Mbps full-duplex transfer from computer-to-computer only (if your NICs and drivers support it).  Computer-to-Internet speed will be limited by the speed of your Internet connection, but the switch function will keep that slower connection separate from the faster LAN connections.

The EtherFast manual can be found here (~ 1.6MB in PDF format).  A printed version is included with the router.   You also get a floppy disk that contains a Setup Wizard for Windows users only.  More on that below.

Go to this page for help and additional information for the Etherfast.

 

The Setup

You don’t need the Wizard to setup the router, but it can help inexperienced users get going more quickly.  The Wizard does the following:

  • checks for an Ethernet adapter,

  • makes sure it has a working TCP/IP protocol,

  • prompts the user to set a static IP address (which the user will need to enter), or obtain address information automatically.

  • searches for routers and asks the user to select one to use.

The Wizard won’t work if you have multiple network adapters installed.  If you’re changing from using a software router and have two NICS in the PC that you’re using to setup the router, you’re better off going right to the router setup screen.

The EtherFast has browser based administration, and sets up easily.  You just power up the EtherFast, plug a computer with its TCP/IP set to obtain an address automatically (or from a DHCP server) into one of the WAN ports, boot the computer, launch your web browser, and enter 192.168.1.1 into your browser Location box.  You’ll get a login box (the EtherFast comes set with a default password… a good security feature) where you enter the password and you’re in.

Security warning! Please follow the User Guide’s instructions and change the admin pages’ password during your intitial setup. The admin HTTP server is accessible via the WAN side of the router by default in Firmware versions earlier than V1. 22.

If you don’t change the admin password to a strong password, you may find uninvited “guests” in your LAN’s computers.

Most of what you need for basic setup is on a single page, similar to those on the UMAX UGate 3000 and MacSense XRouter, and makes setup easy.  Here’s what you can do from this one screen:

  • set the WAN port IP information manually or have it act as a DHCP client and obtain everything automatically.

  • set the “Router name” field for those ISPs (like @Home) who require an assigned host name from any computer that is requesting connection.  Entering your assigned name in this field will make sure that you don’t get disconnected when @Home authenticates your connection.

  • set the domain name of the router.  Again, some ISPs require this to be set in order to authenticate the connection.  (I’m not sure if the EtherFast’s DHCP server also passes the domain information to the Client machines. )

  • change the IP address of the LAN side from its default of 192.168.1.1.

  • find the WAN and LAN port MAC address and Firmware revision.  You’ll need the WAN port information if your ISP locks your service to a specific NIC (some MediaOne/RR affiliates do this).  Update 7/11/00You can change the WAN port MAC address to whatever you want if you upgrade to the 1.30.5 firmware.

Many users will never need to go past this first screen, but if they do, they’ll find screens for doing the following:

  • Changing the password.

  • Checking the router status

  • Enabling / disabling the DHCP server and changing the starting address of assigned IP addresses. You can also check the DHCP client table.

  • Getting help. (You can also access related help from a button on each setting page.)

Advanced Stuff

The EtherFast has an interesting mix of advanced features.   It has some routing features that you don’t typically find on this class of router.  But other feature limitations make it look more like other routers in this price range.

Perhaps the most interesting, useful feature is the EtherFast’s ability to handle PPTP connections from multiple clients!  I didn’t test this capability, but if it’s true, then Linksys may have a first in this area!

Update 1/11/00 Linksys has confirmed the multiple PPTP client capability.

Also interesting is that you can enter static routing entries or let the router dynamically adjust its routing tables.  You can set the router to either Gateway (the normal NAT-based operation) or Router mode (if you have another NAT gateway to connect you to the Internet) and separately specify whether the router transmits RIP1, “RIP1-Compatible”, or RIP2 protocols and receives RIP1 or RIP2 protocols.

The port mapping (Linksys calls this “Forwarding”) is limited, but probably adequate unless you have a lot of Clients on your LAN that need to accept inbound connections.   You can open ports in the firewall so that servers on your LAN computers can be accessed from the Internet, but you are limited to 10 port-number-to-LAN IP mappings and you can’t specify TCP or UDP protocol… it forwards both.  In addition, one computer can be completely placed outside the firewall (DMZ Host).

4/23/01 Port range mapping (10 port ranges), port range filtering, and logging features added by 1.37 firmware.

If you are going to open holes in your firewall, please read this information on Security.

Update 4/23/01 With 1.37 firmware, you can control Internet access on up to 5 ranges of IP addresses. For each IP address range, you can set a range of TCPor UDP (or both) ports to be filtered.  You’ll have to manually assign the Client IP address information for filtering by IP address to work reliably (a fairly standard requirement).

You can also enter up to 50 MAC addresses that will have all Internet access blocked.

Update 7/11/00 Limited logging has been added with the 1.30.5 firmware.

Finally, Linksys’s Competitive Matrix lists an “Application Sensing Tunnel” that they say “… can sense the application type and open multi-port tunnel for it… ” but I can’t figure out what it does or how it works!

Go here for a list of applications that the Linksys supports.

 

Is it Hot?

Update 3/11/01 The results below have been reversed, WAN for LAN, to be consistent with present testing methods.

I finally ran the Qcheck suite of tests on Linky.  Here’s what I found:

[Tests run with Ver 1.37.1 firmware]

Test Description

Qcheck Transfer Rate (Mbps)

[1Mbyte data size]

Qcheck Response Time (msec)
[10 iterations 100byte data size]

Qcheck UDP stream
[10S@500Kbps]

(Actual throughput- kbps)

(Lost data- %)

WAN-LAN

4. 2

3 avg.
4 max.

461
[see Note]

6.5

LAN-WAN

4.3

3 avg.
4 max.

498

0.2

(Details of how we tested can be found here.)

Limitations

You won’t be able to do the following with the EtherFast, but these limitations are common in the routers in this price range:

  • No content filtering.

  • No time-based access control

  • No “official” support for the RoadRunner TAS login protocol (Linksys says it works with some RR affiliates, not with others)

Problems

This section summarizes problems that have been reported by users.   Also check the Help Page.

  • Hosting Quake3, Unreal Tournament, and other servers may not work, but this problem may be reduced or eliminated with the 1.37.1 firmware.
  • Firmware updates are frequent and add new features, but often break existing functions.
  • Problems continue with maintaining PPPoE connections, especially for Sympatico users.  The combination of PPPoE and either PPTP or IPsec is particularly troublesome. See this page.
  • You may encounter long delays in reaching Linksys Tech support.  Some unfriendly and unhelpful tech support personnel have also been reported, especially on weekends.  You may also be asked to leave a call-back number instead of being able to talk to a Tech Support person.  Email support requests often go unanswered.
  • Some NICs (including Linksys NICS!) don’t seem to work with the built-in switch. Symptoms are no Link LED and/or inability to connect to other computers.  Go here for help on this.

Summary

(700+ opinions and many, many emails later, I figured it was time to again update this summary!)

Linksys continues to hold its own in the price / performance battles with the other low cost routers that have been introduced since this router first hit the streets.  The BEFSR41 and the newer 1 port BEFSR11 are runaway best sellers and have given this entire market segment a real kick in the pants!  Linksys also has excellent retail distribution, which gives it a definite advantage over its competition.

That being said, the ongoing problems mentioned above, and Linksys’ overloaded Tech Support group have caused a good deal of frustration and bad feelings among a number of users.  Users are especially frustrated by new firmware releases that add new features, but break existing ones.  Although Linksys has been hard at work on the problems,  solutions have been elusive in some cases.  This has caused some users to give up and buy other products.

So the new bottom line is more like:

“Great product for most users, an exercise in frustration for some, and users with advanced needs (especially for large numbers of mapped ports) may not be able to successfully use the product.”

 

 

 

Linksys / BEFSR41 : Configured

Note: If you are unable to fix this issue, after following these instructions, we may be able to help.

Get help from RouterCheck support.

Understanding the problem «The router is configured from the Internet»

«Ping» is an Internet protocol that helps determine whether another computer is running and online on the same computer.

This is invaluable for corporate servers, but not as significant for home networks.

Hackers have started using Ping when looking for home networks to attack, so it’s recommended to turn it off on home routers if possible.

Unfortunately, some routers won’t let you disable this feature, but if yours does, it’s worth doing.

What is the risk of not fixing this problem?

Hackers around the world often check the entire Internet, looking for potential targets for attck.

Because the Internet is so vast, they don’t want to waste their time trying to get into something that isn’t worth it.

That’s why they use Ping — to see if there’s something on a particular IP that’s worth attacking.

If nothing replies, they will often move on to the next IP address.

If you have a good reason why your home network should respond to random contacts over the Internet, then by all means leave the setting on.

But for the vast majority of home networks, it’s much safer to turn this off.

Also, note that many router manufacturers will unfortunately leave this feature on by default.

Supplier documentation

It’s often a good idea to look in your router’s documentation to see how to fix problems.

Go to the manufacturer’s support site where you can download the documentation.

How to fix the problem «The router is configured from the Internet»

Step 1: Login to the router

You use a web browser to interact with your router and fix your configuration problems.

However, before you can interact with your browser, you must be logged into it.

RouterCheck can give you detailed instructions for logging into your router.

Step 2: If the login is successful, your router home page will open.


Step 3: Go to the WAN setup page.

You want to find a page that contains options for how the router deals with the outside Internet.

The page name might look like:

  • Internet Options
  • WAN settings
  • Firewall
  • Port forwarding

Navigate to this page by clicking on the relevant menu items and buttons.

Step 4: If you are successful, the WAN settings page of the router will open.

Step 5: Turn Off Responding to Internet Packets

Make sure you leave the checkbox in the state so that the router will not respond to ping commands.

Step 6: Re-run RouterCheck.


Now that you’ve fixed your issue, run RouterCheck again to make sure you’ve actually fixed the issue.

Solve the problem on the router

  • Bad admin password

  • Remote administration is on

  • Ports are open

  • The router is pingable from the internet

  • Local DNS server

  • Unknown DNS Server

  • DNS server resolves non-existent domains

  • Rogue DNS servers

  • Actual DNS servers

  • Wifi security not in use

  • WEP Wifi security is used

  • Used WPA Wifi security

  • Turn on WPS

  • Failed to detect WiFi security

  • Denial Vulnerabilities Tested

  • Vulnerability search error

Learn how to use your router

  • How to connect to a router

  • How to reset your router to factory settings

  • How to download new firmware on the router

  • Get the default administrator password for your router.