Customer Reviews

Cisco RVS4000 4-port Gigabit Security Router - VPN

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I purchased the RVS4000 primarily due to its gigabit WAN port; very few wired firewalls have a gigabit WAN port. Not having a gigabit WAN port is a reasonable design because WAN ports in many SOHO firewall applications will likely connect to T1 (1.5 Mbps) or T3 lines (45 Mbps) at most. Since these data rates are lower than that of an ordinary 100 Mbps ethernet port, a gigabit WAN port is more than what is required of a WAN interface.

However, I wanted to use a firewall/router on the network inside of my primary NAT/SPI firewall which is primarily a gigabit network. So, a gigabit WAN port was an important feature because it needs to connect to a gigabit switch (not a WAN link).

Before my purchase, I read many customer reviews that complained about slow data rates through the WAN port. These reviews were very discouraging since the Linksys had a gigabit WAN interface. This was until I found a benchmark test that explained the negative reviews. The RVS4000 (primarily due to its industrial-grade security features) has a WAN to LAN data rate of 15.9 Mbps; very slow for a gigabit interface. However, this can be improved upon by configuring (turning off) the security features of the firewall. Unless you configure the firewall as a non-gateway device, don't expect orders of magnitude improvement in speed.

Here's the good news. The benchmark clocked the RVS4000 LAN to WAN data rate at 530 Mbps. Since many disk drive interfaces do not have a sustained data rate this high; you will not see this number when transfering files. I have a couple NAS RAID boxes with gigabit interfaces that top out at around 100-150 Mbps (individually). I can get higher network utilization numbers when doing several files transfers between different network endpoints simultaneously. Network file transfers tend to be very CPU intensive, even when using SCSI hard drives. The CPU intensive part comes from having to package up the data into IP packets and managing the data transfer.

The bottom line is that I am very satisfied with this firewall and its gigabit WAN port. But understand that it needs to be configured properly to optimize its performance and functionality. You don't need to be an engineer or rocket scientist to do this; however, you will need a bit of understanding about IP networking. If you use the RVS4000 as a primary firewall (configuring all of its security features), I suspect it will do that job rather well also.

 

I am baffled by the other reviewers comments  the Linksys RVS4000 router is an advanced, integrated router, a firewall and a 4-port full duplex gigabit switch that will satisfy most home offices and home networks. It is economical as it replaces two devices the router and switch, and offers gigabit speed. Nothing else on the market will do this.

The RVS4000 is a gem that supports QoS allows parents to regulate their childrens internet and network access. Heck, the thing even supports jumbo frames unlike a lot of expensive managed 10/100/1000 managed switches; although the MaxFrame feature default is set to 1518 (disabled), and must be manually set to 9600 to get the benefit.

Otherwise, the RVS4000 worked great for me.

I've had this Linksys RVS4000 4-Port Gigabit Security Router with VPN for a little over two weeks now. I had no problem setting it up and I've had no problems with it operationally. My old Belkin F5D8230-4 Pre-N Router would freeze up every three or four days. This RVS4000 has worked continuously without problem. A couple of very important points, though:

- First, there's a firmware update available on Linksys' site (v1.1.09, dated 02/21/2007). Apparently, this update fixes quite a lot. So much so, that after installing it you MUST reset to factory defaults. So, make sure you update the firmware first thing, and then reset. Don't use any old setups.
- Also, Linksys doesn't seem to care about U.S. Daylight Savings Time having changed. That new firmware, though released just prior to the change, doesn't use the new dates. So, even though the router has a synchronization option and a DST option, I had to turn those off and set the time manually.
- Regarding ease of setup, I'm not using any kind of VPN stuff. I bought this router for it's Gigabit capability over the local network, not for the VPN. So, maybe that's why I had no problem setting it up where other people claim they've had trouble. Or, it could be that the firmware update has simplified things.

Overall, I rate this Linksys RVS4000 at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5. If Linksys had changed the Daylight Savings Time settings to reflect the new U.S. dates, I'd have given it a full 5 stars out of 5.

I bought this router/firewall about ten months ago to replace an older SMC Barricade that was becoming unreliable. For the most part I have been pleased with it, it has a decent firewall/IDS, VLAN routing, good DHCP configurability and purports to have VPN support. Unfortunately, I have found that with a VPN tunnel configured, there is a memory leak in the firmware vpn code that causes the router to reboot every 24 hours. This could be tolerable for me if I could time the reboot (or schedule one) but that is not supported and it only comes back from the reboot 80% of the time. After disabling the VPN tunnel it works fine. My hope is that they will get around to fixing it in a newer firmware version but I have stayed current and found the update frequency to be very slow. So, if you don't need the VPN tunnel this is a fine (if pricey) unit. If you need a reliable VPN tunnel product, try something else at this point.

 

There isn't a problem with this router, it works fine, however, if you are using Windows Vista you are in trouble. This is because Linksys still hasn't resolved why its QuickVPN software won't connect with Vista. So, if you are buying the VPN router hoping to connect to your office, watch out. QuickVPN doesn't work and despite Linksys (Cisco)'s giant size--their engineers cannot solve the QuickVPN problem.

They should disclose this to you before you buy the router. This is why I am writing the review--to warn the next buyer.

I replaced a linksys BEFSR81V3 FW 2.45.5 with this RVS4000. Updated factory default to the latest FW and IPS and then configured to match replaced router.

The first thing that happened is that it locked up while doing a scan of the LAN from VPNing in. Had to have the client do a power cycle to get it back.

I had set up email logs to monitor behavior and started to receive many errors. Contacted linksys tech support, actually connected to Cisco product manager, to findout what the errors are and if it would cause a lockup at the client's site. Said it would be corrected in the next FW release, but didn't answer if it would cause a lock up or not. My impression is that their attitude was that they really didn't care (no offer of beta FW release or things to mitigate the lockups) and attempted to pin the "blame" on the load at the client's site. The old BEFSR is a faster router and more reliable than an RVS4000?!

It locked up again during normal use, usage is very light, and had to power cycle to get it back. Remember that this replaced the old BEFSR model that worked reliably for many years. Because IPS adds a lot more load on the router, I disabled that to see if that would prevent the lock up.

It locked up again during normal use. The client power cycled and it started to work again. Investigating this behavior more, I found that it was recommended that I restore factory defaults, install the FW upgrade, restore factory defaults again and then apply the configuration, which I did. It locked up again.

Replaced the RVS4000 with an RV042 and it has been working for weeks without issue. Returned the RVS4000 and Amazon made it easy to do so. I will not use the RVS4000 again.

This costs me a lot of money as the client is a 2 hour round trip away and new, so not a very good first impression.

Hope this help you with your purchase decision.

Fairly easy as far as VPN routers go, good directions and intuitive interface. Also pretty cheap considering it has gig interfaces. I set 3 of these up for remote administration and had all of them going within an hour.

 

We bought this router specifically to handle multiple, simultaneous instances of Screen Share (Macintosh OS X); other routers with Port Forwarding couldn't handle the specific type of routing required. The VPN and security features on this router do however (I believe it's called Port Translation instead of Port Forwarding), and it does the trick. We can have 3 or 4 remote connections viewing an equal number of unique machines on our LAN all behind the single Firewall. Very nice!

I was a bit skeptical about this product due to some early reviews that were negative, but I've had a great experience. It offers a very rich set of functions, and has definitely reduced "suspicious activity" I had been experiencing with my prior router (an old Linksys Etherfast DSL Router). I've had to reset it only once in the three months I've had it. I have not tried its VPN support.

I'm very pleased with this product.

Got this to firewall an Internet service and its been working great! The Built-in IPS (Intruder Prevention System) seems to catch a lot of attacks, so that part is good. Setting up VLANs (Virtual LANs) is a snap and seems to work great. The IPSec VPN really only works right with the Linksys QuickVPN software, but its easy to install and if you follow the directions, works great the first time out. This box is overkill for just a home network, but for us SOHO users with data that we need to access while mobile, its a champ! Now if it only have VIP (Virtual IP) so I could set up some Highly-Available servers.... Documentation is rather sparse in my opinion, so its not a good choice for a net n00by to set up.