Cisco RV042 4-port 10/100 VPN Router - Dual WAN Review

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(More customer reviews)I wanted a low-cost VPN solution and had been debating purchasing the Cisco 501 PIX firewall and Netscreen's lowest end 5GT VPN router (which costs $450 + maintenance/support contracts) before discovering this bargain model. Tom's Networking Hardware has a good review about the RV082 holding up with Netscreen's 5GT VPN router in performance tests, which pretty much convinced me to get this Linksys brand. I use the RV082 for our main office and the RV042 as a client in our remote office in mainland China, so I can't say for sure that an RV042-RV042 solution works. Note: If you intend to purchase this model and use it for an international location, however, you do need to purchase a separate 220 volt/1000 mA/12 volt adapter, since the unit only comes with a 110 volt adapter. (Linksys apparently has yet to provide a universal power adapter for this product line.)
I thought the RV042 would be exactly the same as the RV082 except with 4 ports instead of 8. However, I found that the firmware is still a bit behind the RV082 (the RV042 also does not come with an internal PPTP server, though this PPTP server is still not compatible with the Win2000/XP PPTP client). One major benefit of the RV082 is that it comes with a free VPN client called QuickVPN (downloadable in the same section where the RV082 firmware is located). Unlike other Linksys VPN routers, the RV082 using the QuickVPN client avoids the trouble of needing to follow a 16-page procedure for configuring a Win2000/XP client to access the VPN.
The RV082 firmware (v1.1.6.3) contains an "HTTP Service" option that must be enabled to provide QuickVPN support. The QuickVPN client appears to retrieve some VPN server information through https:// requests, which isn't evident unless you look closely at the wget_error.txt located inside the C:\Program Files\Linksys\Linksys VPN Client directory. The RV042 firmware (1.3.1) does not yet support this feature, but their current BETA version (v1.3.3) does (downloaded from linksysinfo.org). Linksys has yet to officially release this firmware, so be forewarned!
The RV units may also be compatible with other VPN brands. We had been using the really flaky Symantec 200 VPN units and managed to get one of the units to negotiate a IPSEC tunnel with the RV042 and RV082. You can use the VPN log feature to see if the negotiation works. Enable the keep-alive option in the Advanced features to help maintain a persistent tunnel too!
Instructions for QuickVPN and setting up the RV042:
1. Upgrade to the latest firmware version (1.3.3 beta off Linksysinfo.org. Additional note: There are reports of problems with the the 1.3.6 beta so have stayed away from using it.)
2. Inside the "Firewall" section, enable the HTTPS service. Make sure to Save Settings too.
3. Inside the "VPN" section, click on the VPN Client Users. Add a username and password that will be used for the QuickVPN Client. Make sure the user that you will be using is selected as Active.
4. Make sure that your client's NAT/firewall has IPSEC passthrough capability turned-on. If you don't, you may see that the QuickVPN client successfully connects but freezes at "Verifying Network".
5. Your client's IP subnet should not conflict with the other remote networks (i.e. Your client subnet should be 192.168.2.0 if your remote networks use 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.1.0)
6. Verify that the IPSEC services is running on your Windows machine.
7. If you are running Windows XP SP2, you need to disable the Windows Firewall. You may also see the connection established but QuickVPN get stuck at the "Verifying Network" message.
A good place to debug your problem is to look at the error logs in the wget_error.txt in the directory where the QuickVPN client is installed (i.e. C:\Program Files\Linksys). The wget program apparently tries to connect via HTTPS to the RV042/RV08 to obtain VPN server information. If the connection is successful, you can see several .conf files downloaded into the same directory.
One another note: Both the RV042 and RV082 have a second WAN port for load-balancing, but I've seen enough reports to stay away from using this feature until Linksys manages to resolves the issues in the firmware.

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Network connections are the backbone of business connections. One of the Cisco Small Business Routers, the RV042 Virtual Private Networking (VPN) Router supports up to four wired and 50 off-site connections. The latter allows users to connect into your network with secure access to your files and intranet. The RV042 comes with dual Internet ports that can serve as a failsafe system for 24/7 network uptime, or as a secondary connection to a separate Internet provider. Whether they're used for backup or speed boosting, the router's networking hardware will keep bottlenecks away from your network, period.

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