VPN Hardware Suggestions for Home Business

[ZeroAdmin]

Greetings,

I am looking to setup a VPN to my home business network. My intent is to allow hired developers to VPN into my network and use my environment to develop applications for me.

I have been reviewing hardware for consideration. And for a time was leaning towards an inexpensive solution like the LinkSys RV042, but am still not sure what is the best route.

Any an all considerations and suggestions are welcomed. Especially if you are already doing something like this. I am a sys admin by trade, with significant exposure to corporate VPN equipment, but don't feel the need to shell out 1K for a solution.

Regards,
ZeroAdmin

 

[dberg35]

Look at the Netgear FVS318 router, my company used this for years to connect 3 stores to the server. I recently replaced these because higher demands were needed. The Netgear is very easy to set up and manage.

 

[EtherealMedia]

Greetings ZeroAdmin -

I've setup, administered, and used Watchguard SOHOs (~$3xx+), Cisco PIX501s (~$3xx+) and Netgear FVS318s (~$1xx) for securing LANs and accessing remotely via VPNs.

All work with free VPN clients, but the Cisco PIX VPN wizard and the Cisco VPN Client combo is easiest to set up for VPN access, IMNSHO. Plus you can email a secured zip of the Cisco profile (.pcf file) and the remote user just drops it in place and voila, connection works.

My vote is for the Cisco PIX501 unless you need DynamicDNS client on the router itself, then the Netgear could be my choice, but, I'd probably still go with the Cisco PIX501 10 user bundle because I could set it up to limit these remote users to specific ports and machines on my LAN. If I needed a DynDNS client due to a dynamic IP from my ISP, I'd probably install that on a WAN-facing host

To me the Cisco feels like it has better performance than the FVS318, but I haven't performed any rigourous tests to validate that.

Make sure you get a v3 version of the FVS318 if you go that route.