Saturday, May 4, 2019

May 04, 2019 | Posted in by Daiki | 3 comments

TP-Link SafeStream TL-R600VPN Gigabit Broadband Desktop VPN Router, 680M NAT throughput, 20k Concurrent Sessions, 20 IPSec VPN Tunnels, VLAN, Multi-NAT, 4 WAN Load balance or auto failover

TP-Link SafeStream TL-R600VPN Gigabit Broadband Desktop VPN Router, 680M NAT throughput, 20k Concurrent Sessions, 20 IPSec VPN Tunnels, VLAN, Multi-NAT, 4 WAN Load balance or auto failover

Ok, so after I initially set this up, I was frustrated for a day or so until I figured out what was going on. The router has been up for a couple of days now with now issues and I hope it continues this way. I had to install this in a wall panel, so I needed it to be able to work properly on power cycles without me going to the devices physically. As stated in the title, there are 2 things to be careful about for simple connections, like a home network in my case:

1) Ports 2, 3, and 4 can be configured as LAN (Local network) OR WAN (Internet) ports and I think, by default, ports 1 AND 2 are set for WAN.
So if you hook your internet/external network connection up to Port 1 and then just assume you can connect a local computer up to Port 2 to manage configuration, you're gonna have a bad time. For initial config, connect your internet to Port 1 and computer to Port 5 and then setup WAN/LAN configurable ports the way you need before reconnecting anything else.

2) Several others had issues with dropping the WAN (Internet) connection after less than an hour, it seems like this is because of the "Anti ARP Spoofing" firewall feature, which I think is also on by default and seems to be crap. Disable it and you should see WAN stability.
I was getting extremely frustrated because my internet connection just seemed to keep dropping. My computer would state that they still had an ethernet connection but no internet. I'd be able to successfully reach and log in to the router and then I'd have to manually force a connection on the WAN (even if it said connected) and test pinging Google to see if it was actually connected. It would be up for 45-60 minutes then die out again. It would self-correct a lot of the time but it was frequent enough and lasted long enough that it impacted regular web surfing and listening to Pandora. I have WebPass (Google Fiber) and haven't ever had connection drop issues, so I started playing with the configurations. Once I turned that one off, everything was working perfectly. There are additional settings to allow bound MAC addresses (which you can import automatically when you reserve them in DHCP), but I didn't even want to test that. Just turn the functionality off and everything is good.

Otherwise, so far so good! Loses a star because those are on by default (if I remember correctly, could be wrong) and they caused serious headaches.

I've been looking for a decent wired router for years. Basically we have ethernet cables run because where the cable comes in his a horrible place for wifi, so why not just separate the two? The problem I always run into is that most of them are either so pro focused (Ubiquiti) I can't figure it out. Or they're sot expensive, that it would make sense just to buy another mid tier wifi router, and turn the wifi off. This one was a nice balance. Simple enough, with the advanced features I was looking for.

Only real knocks:
1. They do not update the firmware very often... which makes me security nervous.
2. You can't name (or have names show up for) the reserved IPs. Seriously, how hard is that? It's not the end of the world, just make a spread sheet. Weirdly, for all of the DHCP clients, it has their names displayed. Maybe they figure it's redundant? In any case, found that a bit annoying.

Overall though, I'm really impressed. No problems with uptime at all (at 6 months I moved some cords around, and that was the first time it got rebooted in months). Eventually, I'd like to dig into the VPN stuff a bit more... but I guess that's for a future edit to this.

I got this to replace a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT. I recently had 50+ MB cable internet installed as part of a T-W/Spectrum package, and the Linksys router couldn't keep up speed-wise. It would only get about 35 MB throughput, and if I connected a computer directly to the cable modem I would see 61 MB speed (Spectrum was over performing in this case). I was wasting 25 MB of speed by using the Linksys router. After installing this router, I now see the full speed at my computer behind the router. Its setup was not at all complicated, as long as you have a working knowledge of networking. Some reviewers have complained about the setup process, but I did not find it a problem (but then again, I am pretty much a geek). The price is excellent for a router of this quality. My alternative was to convert an old PC into being a router, which would have provided plenty of speed, but that would have been more cumbersome space and power-wise. I can't comment as to longevity at this point, but so far, so good.

Superb. For about $50 you get excellent technology. Now connections to the internet are a lot faster. No hiccups. The fact that allows you to reserve one or more internal IP addresses is very useful if you have applications that default to the last IP number, such as a file transfer app from your android phone to your PC. You can configure the DHCP service of this router to always assign to a PC or server the same IP address. The metal case is efficient in dissipating heat, much better that plastic cases.

So far this has been a drop in replacement from my old Trendnet router. When I upgraded my Cable Internet service to 50 from 10 I apparently wasn't getting the speed that I was paying for. After doing some troubleshooting it turned out that my Trendnet router maxed out at 20 on the WAN interface (I wasn't even getting that). This was quite surprising to me as one would assume that all the interfaces would be similar in capability. The old router had never given me any trouble and it was very highly configurable so it was with great trepidation that I went to the Internet to do my research. I didn't want to spend too much money but some of these routers capable of the high speed that I wanted were quite expensive and the ratings were not all that good. I then discovered this little router which has the technical capabilities that I needed a great price and pretty good ratings. After receiving it, unpacking it and checking out that I got all the parts I unplugged the Trendnet and plugged in the TP-LINK. After recycling the Cable modem everything came up and worked as expected. And my Internet speed now exceeded what I was paying for. Just to be clear I wasn't using any special features such as port forwarding, VPN or Server Hosting. I also use DHCP through out my network. Your mileage may vary depending on your specific circumstances. I am looking forward to using some of the special features and will report back about those. The only real downside to this device is the documentation. It is not very good and makes lots of assumptions about your level of Networking knowledge being pretty high. For a basic network router you shouldn't hesitate to purchase. But if you want to take advantage of the more advanced capabilities then you should be pretty savvy on network technologies and you can use the documentation as a guide to the device and not as a tutorial on the technology.


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Feature Product

  • 1 Gigabit WAN port, 1 Gigabit LAN Port, and 3 Gigabit WAN/LAN ports provide high-speed wired connectivity
  • Supports IPSec, L2TP/IPSec, and PPTP VPN protocols, Simultaneous supports up to 20 IPsec VPN tunnels, 16 L2TP VPN tunnels and 16 PPTP VPN tunnels
  • SPI firewall and DoS defense protect your network from most known Internet attacks
  • Professional 4KV lightning protection keeps your investment safe and sound
  • 1 Gigabit WAN port and 4 Gigabit LAN ports provide high-speed wired connectivity
  • Supports IPsec/PPTP VPN protocols, Up to 20 IPsec VPN tunnels and 16 PPTP VPN tunnels are simultaneously supported
  • SPI firewall and DoS defense protect your network from most known Internet attacks
  • Professional 4KV lightning protection keeps your investment safe and sound
  • Remote Management
  • DoS Attack Defence, Ping of Death

Description

What This Product Does
TL-R600VPN, TP-LINK's SafeStream Gigabit Broadband VPN Router, supports Gigabit Ethernet connections on both WAN and LAN ports which guarantee high-speed wired connectivity. What’s more, it integrates multiple VPN protocols, high-security and high-performance VPN capabilities, which enable employees’ remote connections to their main offices as secure as if they were in the main office. Besides, TL-R600VPN’s abundant security strategies such as SPI Firewall, DoS Defense and IP-MAC Binding help protect your network against most known attacks. TL-R600VPN is an ideal partner for small offices, which need cost-effective and reliable VPN solutions. If you want your Internet connection to remain active at all times, enter 0 in the Max Idle Time field. Otherwise, enter the number of minutes you want to have elapsed before your Internet connection terminates

High-security VPN Capabilities
TL-R600VPN supports IPsec and PPTP VPN protocols and can handle IPsec/PPTP/L2TP pass-through traffic as well. It also features a built-in hardware-based VPN engine allowing the router to support and manage up to 20 LAN-to-LAN IPsec and 16 PPTP VPN connections. Advanced VPN features include: DES/3DES/AES128/AES192/AES256 encryption, MD5/SHA1 authentication, Manual/IKE key management, and Main/Aggressive negotiation modes.

Abundant Security Features
For defense against external threats, TL-R600VPN features SPI Firewall function. Additionally, it can automatically detect and block Denial of service (DoS) attacks such as TCP/UDP/ICMP Flooding, Ping of Death and other related threats. Moreover, this router provides IP/MAC/Domain name filtering functions, which forcefully prevent attacks from intruders and viruses. For applications such as FTP, TFTP, H.323 and RTSP which are not well compatible with NAT, TL-R600VPN offers administrators one-click enable of ALG choices corresponding to the above four mentioned applications.

Safety Minded Enterprise Investments
Professional lightning protection technology is designed to prevent electrical surges from penetrating the interior of the electrical equipment and is discharged harmlessly into the Earth. This router is designed to prevent lightning up to 4KV in well-grounded connection conditions. This feature ensures that networking infrastructure investments remain as safe as possible from one of mother nature's more violent situations.

Interface Available: 1 Fixed Gigabit WAN Port, 1 Fixed Gigabit LAN Port, 3 Changeable Gigabit WAN/LAN Ports; Protocols Supported: IEEE 802.3 802.3u 802.3ab, TCP/IP DHCP ICMP NAT PPPoE SNTP HTTP DNS IPsec PPTP; System Requirement: Microsoft Windows 8 7 Vista, XP or MAC OS NetWare UNIX or Linux



We were previously using two Netgear FVS318s to connect our satellite office to our main office. I recently discovered that the Netgear is limited to 10Mbps on the WAN port, and we have a 35/35 connection at the main office and a 50/25 at the satellite office, so an upgrade was in order. I was originally going to go with the Cisco RV180, but after reading about the many bugs with it I figured I'd give the TP-LINK a try.

The interface is pretty basic, and as a result makes configuring it a snap. Within 10 minutes I had it configured for our ISP and created many inbound/outbound policies that we need for RDP, FTP, Exchange, etc. Setting up an IPsec VPN between the two TP-LINK units took about 5 minutes. They have been running for a week now without any issues or reboots. I will update this review if I start having reliability problems.

I know other reviews have mentioned problems with their internet bandwidth decreasing after 24 hours with this router, but I haven't experienced this. However, those users have a 100+Mbps connection and the highest we have is 50Mbps - so that could be the reason we haven't had this issue. VPN throughput tops out at 20Mbps, so if you need faster throughput on the VPN you would want to look at a different router - but this is more than fast enough for basic use (opening files, email, etc). It's not as flexible as a Cisco or a SonicWall, but it's not meant to be and the price reflects this.

Pros:
Great build quality (all metal chassis)
Internal power supply
Performance
Price

Cons:
Internal power supply emits a low volume high pitch noise (not uncommon, but the Netgear was silent)
Not rack/wall mountable

UPDATE 1 (10/21/13): Been using two of these for over a month now without any problems. I see several people reported issues with PPTP VPN. I haven't experienced this as we are using IPsec, but TP-Link has updated the firmware to fix the PPTP problems. Still very happy with this router.

UPDATE 2 (02/13/14): 6 months and am still very pleased with them.

UPDATE 3 (10/30/14): Over a year now (system uptime says 414 days) and haven't had any issues with our two units. I still think these are a great value for a small business that needs basic VPN router. For a medium sized business or if you need a more enterprise level product/features, I would highly suggest the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite or the Ubiquiti USG (both of which are around $120).

UPDATE 4 (02/02/15): Just a few minutes ago one of our units gave up the ghost. All of the lights on the unit are lit up orange even without anything being plugged into the ports. I tried a 30-30-30 reset, but the unit is still non-responsive. Guess I'll get to see how good TP-Link's customer service is. As I am now questioning the reliability of these units, I have deducted 1 star from this review. The other unit we purchased for our remote office is still going strong. Luckily I planned ahead and had an extra TL-600VPN just in-case something like this was to occur. Since I had the spare unit our downtime was just a few minutes as all I had to do was plug it in and restore the config from a backup. Still, this could have been much worse had I not been prepared.

TP-Link SafeStream TL-R600VPN Gigabit Broadband Desktop VPN Router, 120M NAT throughput, 10k Concurrent Sessions, 256 DHCP Clients, 20 VPN Tunnels
Got it to replace a router that died. As with all such products it has been easy to install and operate. The management interface is pretty simple. Performance is good and have not had any issues for a while.
Recently, three years after install, it failed. The initial issues were when I was using RingCentral ... every time I would get on a conference/video call it would crash and would require reboot! I guess it lived its useful life ....

From what I can see so far, if you are a SOHO network administrator, this device has plenty of features, power, and flexibility to fit a variety of applications. While the GUI is "serviceable", it nonetheless is well organized, and features aren't hard to find. The items I've needed aren't overly-menu-burdened, and workable. Good, quality tools and features that I will have a hard time working beyond.

Like others have commented, if you are "just looking for a switch", this isn't the device for you! This is a wired router, with all the firewall, routing, application layer gateway settings, (etc.). If you don't know what any of those are, or what you'd use them for, then there are much cheaper switches available here, and this device is very likely overkill for your needs. But if you're a SOHO network admin - this box rocks!

I recently bought a new Arris Surfboard modem from Costco which says it supports up to a 384 Mbps connection. Because of my old Asus WL-520GC router, I was only getting about 38Mbps on a good day. Now with this new TL-R600VPN router, I am getting 177Mbps download speeds because of the higher wan-to-lan throughput.

So as of day one, I'm very impressed.

I was worried about the performance over time so I ran a speed test the moment I installed it and another a week later and they're almost exactly the same. I did some digging and TP-Link did put out a new firmware on AUG-01-2015 so I'm not sure if that made a difference or not. The top post on this product when I was buying it was written in 2013 and was saying there was a slow down after 24 hours. I'm not doing anything super fancy with this router it's just there for routing and dhcp but the performance specs on this are so much higher than other models that I wanted to go with it. I picked up an Ubiquiti Unifi AP-LR (about $90 here on Amazon) to use as a wireless access point and the combination of these two items has made my multi device network very efficient. I haven't had any major lag spikes or issues at all. No reboots needed or any tinkering.

The only small issue that I have with this device is that there's no holes for wall mounting it. I just used double sided foam sticky tape and it's worked great but if there was something that I could say bad that would be it.

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