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NETGEAR FVS336G Reviewed: VPN Your Way

Doug Reid

January 17, 2008

Introduction

NETGEAR FVS336

At a Glance
Product	NETGEAR ProSafe Dual WAN Gigabit Firewall (FVS336G)
Summary	Dual Gigabit WAN IPSec and SSL gateway router supporting 25 IPSec & 10 SSL concurrent tunnels with 4-port Gigabit switch
Pros	• SSL VPN Support • Gigabit WAN and LAN ports • Dual WAN • Internal Power Supply
Cons	• Dynamic DNS slow to update • Only 1 IPsec client license included • No DMZ functionality (future release)

At the conclusion of my review on Linksys' RVL200 last month, unaware of this upcoming product, I wrote that "an SSL VPN router with gigabit LAN ports, dual WAN connections and multiple Gateway-to-Gateway tunnel capacity would be a very cool product."

Well, I feel like I just got a belated answer to a Christmas wish! NETGEAR has just released the FVS336G, a new product for small networks, with a compelling combination of features and capabilities. Primarily, I'm talking about SSL VPN capability and six ports (two WAN and four LAN) of gigabit goodness! Let's see if the FVS336G is that shiny new bike under the tree or a lump of coal, shall we?

Physically, the FVS336G is a compact 10" wide, 7" deep, and 1.5" high, with an On/Off switch on the back and no external power brick. It's a little bigger than other 4-port routers, but I like the fact that the power supply is internal. This makes for a neat installation and eliminates the hassle of bulky power bricks.

NETGEAR dressed it up in their business blue metal, with indicator lights for power, WAN, and LAN Port status. The FVS336G also gets NETGEAR's new look menus recently introduced in the FVX538.

To get a better look at both the insides and some of the menu pages, take a look at our slide show. Figure 1 shows the front panel and port indicators, and Figure 2 provides a look at the back panel of the FVS336G.

Figure 1: Front panel and port indicators

Figure 2: Rear panel

There are quite a few options for the network administrator to configure to optimize the FVS336G, and for the most part, they are relatively intuitive. Table 1 below provides a matrix of the main and submenus,with each submenu containing one or more tabbed configuration pages.

MAIN	SUBMENUS
Network	WAN	Protocol	Dyn DNS	LAN	Routing
Security	Services	Schedule	Block Sites	Rules	MAC Filter	Port Triggering
VPN	IPSec	SSL	Certificates	Status
Users	Users	Groups	Domains
Admin	Remote Mgt	SNMP	Backup and Update	Time
Monitoring	Router Status	Active Users	Traffic Meter	Diagnostics	Firewall Logs	VPN Logs
Web Support	Overview	Knowledge base	Documentation

Table 1: FVS336G menu matrix

The bulk of the FVS336G's configurations are accessed via the Network, Security, and VPN Menus, which will be the focus of this review. Let's dive into the VPN capabilities first.

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