Home Broadband Network

I have just completed upgrading my home network and thought it might be beneficial to share my experience. You see, I have a cable modem and have been sharing the connection between 3 PC's and a laptop for the past 3 years or so. I made the decision to drop my traditional Internet Service Provider (ISP) when the local cable television company rolled out the cable modems in my neighborhood.

It didn't take long for me to realize the flexibility the cable modem provides and I quickly added a Linksys BEFSR41 4-Port Router to my network. The router connects directly to the cable modem and has 4 ports for connecting PC's via Ethernet cable. For the majority of the past 3 years this has been quite satisfactory. I use one PC for my Windows 2000 Pro development/personal machine, the second PC is an older HP dual-pentium Kayak I use as a web and mail server, and the third PC is a 1.3ghz Athelon I use as a developmental web server. I occasionally connect a laptop through the 4th port on the router.

Recently, I have been considering an expansion of my network to include computers located in my son and daughter's room. The options are somewhat limited, I could add a small workgroup hub (Linksys has an 8-port hub that works wonderfully) to one of the ports in my router, run the necessary CAT-5 cable, install wall jacks and plates, or I could add a wireless network to the system. WIRELESS, hmmm...

Initially, as I have had excellent luck with Linksys, I was looking at a 4-port Linksys wireless router. This seemed to be the perfect answer with the wireless part for my children's computers and my laptop, and the 4-port for the current 3 PC's connect via Cat-5. But in reading the reviews of this router at Amazon I found others had expressed concerns and problems, while the Netgear MR814 garnered rave reviews. After a little research I bought one and added 2 of the MA401 netcards for my 2 laptops. I've also ordered 3 MA101 wireless USB adapters, one each for my son and daughter's systems, the third for future use. The USB adapters haven't arrived yet, when they do I'll add a paragraph about them at the bottom of this article.

Yesterday I swapped out the Linksys router for the Netgear router. Setup was straight forward and I was off-line for only about 20 minutes. The only major complaint I have/had was the lack of an intellegent loop-back system in the Netgear router. What I am referring too, is the ability to connect to a local web server using it's FQDN (http://www.it-firm.com), the Linksys has this ability and since I have 7 virtual domains running on the web server I have gotten use to just typing in the FQDN and then going to the applicable web site on my local web server. To get to the web-server I had to type in the local IP address. What this gets you is the "default" domain, and since the CSS is shared amoung multiple sites it's a http:// link that doesn't work correctly with an IP address.

Thinking that just maybe Netgear might have a fix for this, I went and searched their web site; 30 minutes and I found a comment in the small print that loopback won't work and you must us the IP address to connect to a server behind the router. So, I tried an email using their online form hoping for a firmware upgrade. While waiting for their reply (could be up to 24 hours), I decided to enter the IP and FQDN's into my workstation's hosts file. Knowing how computers perform name resolution, I knew this would work and indeed it does.

Later I received the following e-mail from Netgear:

Dear Gilbert,

Thank you for contacting Netgear Support. My name is Shahnawaz & I will be handling your enquiry.

The router does not support loop back i.e if you want to access your web server from inside your LAN, you will have to use the LAN ip of the machine that is hosting the web server. If you use the WAN ip, it will bring up the router configuration page.

There are no patches or work around available for this.

Regards

Shahnawaz Shah Netgear Support support@netgear.com

--Original Message--

I replaced a Linksys BEFSR41 with the MR814. With the Linksys I was able to access my local webserver and all of the virtual domains by typing the URL into the browser. With the MR814 I get an error page. Using the IP address of the server I get the default domain with a raw html page, no CSS read by the browser.

I read in the tech docs that it was not possible to access the local web server by URL, but Linksys does this and I really need this to work with the MR814 also.

Otherwise, the MR814 is working great. But, for me, this isn't just a minor inconvenience, I host 7 domains and use a web based email client for all my emailing needs and this now does not work.

Any configuration changes/tweaks or patches you may have to enable this functionality will be greatly appreciated.

A few of my domains for you to check the port forwarding are:

http://www.opedworld.com
http://www.myorgbook.com
http://www.it-firm.com
Thanks for any help you can provide....

My response to them:

Sorry to have bothered you, I corrected the issue and am now operating as before. You are correct there is no way to do this through the router, but you are incorrect in there is no work around.

I'm using Windows 2000 Pro to access a Linux 7.3 server. By adding the necessary domains to the hosts file all previous access is regained. For virtual domains on one server, this works:

My Windows 2000 Pro workstation is at x.x.x.8
Netgear Router at x.x.x.2
Linux Server at x.x.x.7

Hosts file:

127.0.0.1 localhost
x.x.x.7 www.domain1.com
x.x.x.7 mail.domain1.com
x.x.x.7 www.domain2.com
x.x.x.7 www.domain3.net
x.x.x.7 www.domain4.net
etc....
The hosts file is located in my case - c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc

This is a viable workaround and should be posted to your website and in the documentation. I wasted just over 3 hours trying different configurations on the router. A little knowledge of windows name resolution goes a long way.

Thanks for the quick response...

And now for their final response to this issue:

Dear Gilbert,

We thank you for the for information that you provided regarding the hosts file. If you need more assistance please do let us know.

Regards

Debabrata Goswami Netgear Support support@netgear.com

So, will they offer the hosts file work around to their tech support web site for others to use? I doubt it, will they include the hosts file information in their technical documents? I seriously doubt it, see they and many others assume the people who purchase their products are complete idiots when it comes to anything beyond turning the computer on. I guess in many cases this is true, but tech support needs to acknowledge, there are a few computer professionals that do try to enlighten and share information and solutions.

WIRELESS IS GREAT! All the problems above not withstanding, it's great being able to have the laptop on the couch and write this article. It's great to be able to carry the laptop while still on and wirelessly connected into the kitchen, put popcorn on the stove and sit at the kitchen table, continueing this article without missing a stroke. I love my WIRELESS.

As I said before, I'll be adding more wireless information as soon as the MA101's arrive. I'll also be adding some direct reviews of the hardware I am using. I also just ordered a Wireless Access Point device for using my wireless technology at work. The WAP was 99.00 from Office Depot and should be here at the end of the week. As my home network is configured the same as the one at work, same IP addresses, subnet masks, router IP address etc, I should be able to use my laptop here or there without "plugging it in" to a hard port.

In the next few weeks I'll provide more information about wireless networks in general and my specific hardware in particular!