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In The Market For A New Router


okiwan

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iv had the same linksys for YEARS!!! and its been acting pretty slow lately. so im in the market for a new one. im going to go wifi but id like one that has ethernet ports too. never had a wifi router yet. so whats a good one with some good range/security/long life. well the range isnt too important. its not like i have a big house. i kinda want one with WEP so i can practice some pen testing but would that also make me insecure to others? or would a strong enough password be near impossible to crack? like Jdhi&%764GHF6r7. what are your suggestions? also im lookin for something popular cause im just gonna go to best buy an get it. so dont recommend something that i can only get online.

Edited by okiwan
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I recently did a big upgrade to my home network (2 Tb NAS, Media Server, new router), I got a new wireless linksys one, 4 Ethernet ports, N wireless.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...ys%20n%20router

I think it's pretty popular so it should be in stores too. Then I took my old router which would stop working whenever I downloaded big files, and hooked it up to some VM servers to do pen testing. Yours doesn't need to be wireless for pentests(just can't play around and cracking WEP, not that there is much fun in that anymore).

If your main machine is a desktop, get another NIC and plug that into your pentest router and hook computers/VMs up to that, that is if your VM's are on a different machine. If your running them all on your main computer, there is an option to network them, at least in virtualBox.

Bottom line, I'm very happy with my new router, I've onyl had to restart it once or twice, and that was because my ISP was replacing equipment or something, and it handles streaming video to my media server, while transferring to my network drive with no problems

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thanks for the info. i have two old computer that dont get used maybe ill use them in a little network for some pen testing. this is gonna be fun.

i almost picked up a similar router today, a linksys WRT120n but i checked the reviews from my phone an they were horrible. this one you got looks better but im looking for something a little cheaper. around the $40-$50 range.

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ok so this is whats going on in my head right now. is this correct? can i hook up the old router in conjunction with the new one so im still able to connect? an being that the pen test network is on a seperate router then the regular computers theres no way they can interact with home network right? i dont want them to. i want them to be totally separate but ofcourse i still need to connect to them.

network.png

Edited by okiwan
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ok so this is whats going on in my head right now. is this correct? can i hook up the old router in conjunction with the new one so im still able to connect? an being that the pen test network is on a seperate router then the regular computers theres no way they can interact with home network right? i dont want them to. i want them to be totally separate but ofcourse i still need to connect to them.

network.png

Ok few things, your network is only has fast as its slowest link. So with that in mind if you want to run say a gigabit network but your old router is only say 100mps fast, it will slow down the rest of the network. Yes you can set your router into bridged mode and have it for extra ports on the network but you will need to tweak a couple of settings on it.

also keep in mind firmware upgrades. I know i love using DD-WRT haven't tried open WRT yet, there's also Tomato. and probably a couple others i don't know about.

for me i would look at the Linksys WRT series of routers. next to building your own *like so http://www.hak5.org/episodes/episode-718* i think they are the best IMHO for home users. they now make them with extra memory so linux geeks can get in there and flash new firmware onto it. (look for something like the old WRT54GL) the L stood for Linux based.

you can check their website for the linux based routers and also check out the DD-WRT forums for some reviews and some really good info on routers. I heard of one of these routers being molded to send a wifi signal over 100 miles.

also so you don't wish you had in the future make sure it can do Wireless N and Gigabit speeds.

ETA: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices has a good list on it. it looks like the new Linksys E2100L is a nice piece of hardware but doesn't look like its supported by DD-WRT yet. mmm Atheros chipset...

Edited by Trax
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thanks for the great info ill look into all that!

lol @ 100 miles. that would be so awesome. with that i can connect to my network from anywhere in the state. lol

well heres the quote form wikipeida

Venezuela

Another notable unamplified Wi-Fi link is a 279 km link[9] achieved by (Latin American Networking School)[10].

* Pico del Águila - El Baúl Link.

* frequency: 2412 MHz

* link established in 2006

* IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), channel 1, bandwidth 22 MHz

* Wireless routers: Linksys WRT54G, OpenWrt firmware at el Águila and DD-WRT firmware at El Baúl.

* Length: 279 km (173 mi).

* Parabolic dish antennas were used at both ends, recycled from satellite service.

* At El Aguila site an aluminum mesh reflector 9 ft (2.74 m) diameter, center-fed, at El Baúl a fiberglass solid reflector, offset-fed, 8 by 9 ft (2.44 by 2.74 m). On both ends the feeds were 12 dBi Yagis.

* Linksys WRT54g routers fed the antennas with short LMR400 cables, so the effective gain of the complete antenna is estimated at about 30 dBi.

* This is the largest known range attained with this technology, improving on a previous US record of 125 miles (201 km) achieved last year in U.S. The Swedish space agency attained 310 km (190 mi), but using 6 watt amplifiers to reach an overhead stratospheric balloon.

also you got me on the *ohh i wonder what kick ass routers are out there* kick you might want to research it a bit more but the linksys WRT160NL seems like it might be a good way to go right now, plus i think its around $40 cheaper. its on sale at newegg right now

kind of low on the rom memory though http://dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT160NL

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Ok few things, your network is only has fast as its slowest link. So with that in mind if you want to run say a gigabit network but your old router is only say 100mps fast, it will slow down the rest of the network. Yes you can set your router into bridged mode and have it for extra ports on the network but you will need to tweak a couple of settings on it.

This isn't entirely correct. If you want to phrase it that way you would need to say "your network is only has fast as its slowest link on the path from source to destination"

You can have a mixed mixed speeds. Anything which is on the gigabit network will be able to take advantage of the gigabit speed, but will only be limited if they are accessing something on a slower lan. And anything on the slower lan will be limited to that speed, even if they are accessing something on the gigbit network.,

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good to know ascorbic thanks.

also i think building my own router like in darrens video is a project im going to have to take on later. i dont have time for that now cause theres too many other things im learning. although its so tempting.

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This isn't entirely correct. If you want to phrase it that way you would need to say "your network is only has fast as its slowest link on the path from source to destination"

You can have a mixed mixed speeds. Anything which is on the gigabit network will be able to take advantage of the gigabit speed, but will only be limited if they are accessing something on a slower lan. And anything on the slower lan will be limited to that speed, even if they are accessing something on the gigbit network.,

Your right sorry sometimes i get ahead of myself.

Oki, Personally i would stay away from anything with an internal antenna. i know you live in a small place, but so do I, and my POS netgear WNR3500 has a internal antenna (got it for free sssooo) will give me around 75% signal strength from only about 8 feet away.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16833124343

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16833124385

its only a $10 difference in price.

Oh the free router part, If you are with Comcast cable( at least in my area) they will now give you a free router, but like i said its a POS the only good part is that so far i havn't maxed out the ram in it like i used to do on my old WRT.

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i got one. i picked up the linksys E2000 wireless-N router. dual band wifi, gigabit ethernet. i was looking at the E1000 and the guy at the store said he has the E2000 an hes able to get a strong signal out in the street by his car. it dosnt have any external antennas but i think it has 8 internal.

i allways end up spending more then i should...i guess i could have went bigger.

Edited by okiwan
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my download speed on speedtest.net with the old router was 2mb per sec. now its at 14.

just checked i can flash the firmware on this one too.

also i can switch from wep to wpa/wpa2 so i can still do some pen testing.

Edited by okiwan
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