cisco 1600 Vs. linksys stuff

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nameless_centurian

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now and again i do some volunteer work for a local nonprofit. i've spoken about them before on here, but i'll explain some stuff again.

they've got an internet connection (what it is, i don't know.. i'll have to find out). they also have several campuses that are many miles apart. they handle traffic for about 200-300 users, i'd imagine, in addition to hosting their own mail server and web server.

this group is poor, and i mean poor. all of their machines (including servers) are donated PII's that are no lnoger used elsewhere. it gets them by.

however, the quality of even simple internet browsing on this network is a pain, and here's why i think it is.

they've got the main public line coming into building 1. sitting at the very front is a linksys somethingorther router. this router performs the firewalling for the entire operation. it also does all routing for the entire operation, as the other two buildings VPN into this sucker for access to the local resources (file servers and whatnot). so i really think this little router is being overwhelmed.

i recently stumbled onto a cisco 1600 with a serial interface and an ethernet interface. they couldn't use the serial interface, they don't have that type of connection. so i'd be left with one interface to do all the work, which i think i could do some fancy stuff with NAT and subinterfaces and make it work.

my questions is this: would they see a performance gain if using this cisco 1600? i know they need something bigger yet, but they've got no money to spend on technology. do you honestly think they could get some performance improvement if using this router?

secondly, where could i get an IOS upgrade for this thing? you've got to be a cisco customer to get IOS upgrades the last time i checked (2 years ago), and i am not one. i think the router is running some 10.x IOS, but i believe the VPN capabilities weren't added until the 12.x series of IOS's.[edit] before i get nastygrams, i am *NOT* asking for an illegal IOS, i am asking if one can find legal copies of an IOS now without paying[/edit]

edit: would this be too insecure, as an attacker can potentially see down to layer two?

edit: a sh ver reveals that it is IOS 11.1

does 11.x have VPN capabilities?
 
no you have to buy the IOS. i'm not sure what IOS version VPN was added, but you'll also need to get the "Advanced IP services" feature set of the correct version, and that will cost you a pretty penny.

Cisco recently set the end of life on the 1700 series, which are replaced by the 1800 and 2800 routers. so that puts the age of the 1600's in perspective. i doubt it would give a performance upgrade because once you put encryption on a 1600, i'm sure the CPU will implode. it's not very powerful.

but i'm just a lowly CCNA (passed 3 weeks ago, first try), so what do i know :)
 
takethesewords said:
no you have to buy the IOS. i'm not sure what IOS version VPN was added, but you'll also need to get the "Advanced IP services" feature set of the correct version, and that will cost you a pretty penny.

Cisco recently set the end of life on the 1700 series, which are replaced by the 1800 and 2800 routers. so that puts the age of the 1600's in perspective. i doubt it would give a performance upgrade because once you put encryption on a 1600, i'm sure the CPU will implode. it's not very powerful.

but i'm just a lowly CCNA (passed 3 weeks ago, first try), so what do i know :)
Click to expand...


hey, congrats on the CCNA. mine expires in about 3 weeks, but i don't plan on renewing it.

i knew this 1600 was kind of old, but i had no idea it was as old as you're telling me.... oh well, i can always use it at home i guess.

maybe i can look into a nix solution or something.

thanks again.
 
A unix solution may be your best bet since the budget is practically zero. You could see about using two of the PII machines, one for the firewalling/router functions, and another one as a VPN server.
 
Or maybe DD-WRT running on an x86 platform, since BrainSlayer just relased that. He typically gives out one license for free, and I am sure if you needed one more he would give it for free for a charity. He is usually pretty cool about that. It would give you a huge portion of what you would need it to do on one system.
 
If it's one of the old befs series Linksys..wow..definitely underpowered...I'd not go above 50 users on one of them. Hopefully it's an RV0 series.

Yeah..I'd toss the befs

Budget...built a linux router like IPCop or Endian
or

You say non-profit? You know Cisco donates heavily to www.techsoup.org
Which provides Microsoft operating systems (including servers), OS's, Office suites, Cisco, and Symantec products...all barely for the price of shipping, to qualified non-profits.
 
wow... interesting. i'll see if they're qualified.

i've built linux routers in the past from red hat distros, and while it isn't rocket science, it sure could be made easier. i've never used IPCop or anything like that.

additionally, if i go the nix route, i'll be trying to find something that doesn't need a hard drive because those usually go first, and we're talking pretty old equipment.

that techsoup idea has my intrigued. thanks.
 
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