LAN & WAN Reviews

Introduction

SMC Barricade Plus Cable/DSL Broadband router
Summary	VPN version of popular Barricade router with SPI based firewall and PPTP / IPsec VPN endpoint, but no printserver or dialup WAN support. Will probably do better with PPTP vs. IPsec-based VPNs
Update	10/24/02 - Updates for 2.03e firmware features, including TZO Dynamic DNS, UPnP, PPTP WAN type, and "loopback" support.
Pros	• Schedulable firewall rules & URL keyword blocking w/different time periods per day • Supports 10 WAN IP addresses • Supports PPTP & IPsec VPN endpoints • Supports NetBIOS broadcast (MS Network browsing)
Cons	• No Web traffic logging • No inbound port range mapping • 760kbps IPsec VPN performance • Poor IPsec VPN setup logging

SMC's Barricade Plus is the only one of the current crop of inexpensive VPN endpoint routers to support both IPsec and PPTP tunnels. I found it to be similar to its non-VPN sibling the SMC7004VBR [reviewed here], but with a few idiosyncracies of its own...