Router differences

i was just wondering if there is any real performance difference between different router, like i have a cheap 30 dollar some odd name little router and then i have the linksys which was a lot more its larger and has a fan. Or any other router for that matter, i don't know exactly how they work but it seems like they all the the same thing.

 

yeah, a routers a router, although some have stuff built in, like a Gateway, Firewall

 

I'd imagine for normal use they all perform similarly, not including the wireless ones.

They all run some form of Linux or BSD, so performance should be similar.

 

oh yeah forgot about built in firewall and that kinda of stuff, but thats good to know because i am using the cheap router for splitting internet connection and thought i might be losing some performance. thanks

 

Well, all routers have a type of built in firewall in that they support NAT, which is a good start, but not a 'firewall'. Some have added firewall features, like blocking of certain ports and protocols, but if you're using NAT, you do have some degree of a firewall anyway. You probably won't see a huge difference between different models.

Er, all home rotuers that is. Home routers almost always have a switch built into them. Otherwise, you'd need to assign an IP to each port on your end of the router, instead of just the one. When you assign, say, 192.168.1.1 what you are really doing is assigning that IP to the interface that goes to your home network.

 

i've never seen a router that didn't have a swith built in

 

Sure you have, they're just really big and live in server rooms.

On a more serious note, I know they used to exist in the home market, but may be hard to find today.

 

Nope, not true at all. There's a large difference between a router which provides policy-based routing and one which is made of plastic and sports a set of rabbit ears.

You are right that most routers run some form of embedded unixy OS, usually a BSD derivitive, but also some Linux as well. My edge router/firewall is Linux-based, the ones I use at work are BSD-based, and even Cisco's IOS is based loosely on BSD. There is a Windows-based network gateway called ISA, but it is expensive, unstable, insecure, and a poor performer. Any *nix has a much better networking stack, will be more secure & stable for such purposes, so there's really no advantage to ISA.

 

thankies for that AT, glad you HWF gods are here to correct us mere mortals, again, thankies

well thats not surprising

 

Err... what does that mean? What exactly is this large difference and what is policy-based routing as opposed to ... umm, rabbit ears i guess