Hands On: Syswan Duolinks SW24 VPN High Performance Dual WAN Router

INSTALLATION

First, if you are like me, you will notice from the specs that the SW24 is a 10/100Mbps router.  And the immediate reaction is “I am going to pay what for a 100Mbps router?  No way!”.  But if used properly, you do not need a 1Gbps router.  A router manages the “addresses” of computers in the LAN (Local Area Network) so that data is sent to the proper location.  In addition, the router is your gateway to the internet through the WAN (Wide Area Network).  Which begs the question: how fast is your home Internet connection?  Possibly faster than my cable connection, but certainly less than 100Mbps.  Hook it up to provide a vastly improved secure connection to the Internet, and use it to manage your LAN.  Downstream, use a 1Gbps switch where you can and a wireless access point where you can’t.

This way, you are using the router to manage the network and distribute incoming and outgoing Internet data.  Data inside your network can be routed through high-speed devices.  Another way of looking at it is; make speed an integral part of the LAN, which a 1Gbps switch will give you.  Make security an integral part of the WAN, which the SW24 router will give you.

Makes sense?

Before one can discuss installation, a “plan” must be developed.  The following illustration is a network diagram of my current network.

The following illustration is the network diagram that I will use to integrate the Syswan SW24 router.

There is very little physical difference between the two network diagrams.  Essentially, the only thing I am doing is replacing my current wireless router with the Syswan SW24 router and turning that wireless router into a wireless Access Point.

So, the first thing I need to do is replace the wireless router with the Syswan router.  I removed that router and set it aside for the moment.

In it’s place went the Syswan SW24.

I restarted my computer, and….  Nothing.  Well, actually there was no Internet.  Local access had reverted to a public network on my Windows 7 computer, which was easy to fix, but no Internet. I fiddled with a few things but eventually I had to suck it up, and open the Quick Start Guide.  Let’s see, first line:

1. First, verify that your Duolinks SW24 Series router and cable or DSL modems are powered OFF.

In my case, my modem has battery backup, as it acts as my land-line phone connection also.  No problem, though.  I simply pushed in the reset button, waited the normal 10 seconds, and life was good again.

At that point, I logged onto the Syswan router from my desktop by entering in the address: https://192.168.1.1.  “User name”: admin and “Password” blank.

Please note the use of https vs. http!  With the use of https, you also get to click through the following type of warning screen.

At this point, I closed out the Syswan connection, as I only wanted to verify connectivity at this time.

Once I got my basic functions back on-line, it was now time to do some magic with my wireless router and turn it into an Access Point.  Which turned out to be a relatively simple thing to do.  I disconnected my main workstation from the network and plugged that Ethernet cable into the wireless router.  Next, I logged on to the router.

As both this router and the Syswan router use the same basic IP address (192.168.1.1), I changed that to 192.168.1.2.  If you need to do this, make sure you do not change the subnet mask!  I then switched turned off DHCP.  I restarted the router and it became no longer a router but a wireless Access Point.  As the router had previously been previously set up for wireless access, I had to do nothing there.

I disconnected my *new* wireless Access Point and plugged the Ethernet cable back into my network.  I then connected my AP back into the network per the above network diagram; SW24 LAN port to AP LAN port!  I then started the computers which require wireless access and I was quite happy (and relieved) that normal WAN and LAN access was back.

Now that I had the physical components on-line and basic connectivity reestablished, it was time to check out the Syswan SW24 VPN router hardware and configuration options.