Linksys LRT214 Business Gigabit VPN Router Review

GUI – Setup, System, and Port Management

The next couple pages will show the rest of the GUI in order to give you a feel for the available settings and options. Just because a product has a feature doesn’t mean that it also utilizes it the way you need it to. A full view of the GUI allows you to get a much better feeling for a unit you haven’t tested yourself. There are a few pages that won’t be shown, such as password, time, admin name, and similar things that are a given and/or have been shown during the initialization.

Setup Management

Digging into the manual Configuration pages, we find the basic network settings first. Here we can change some of the things from the Quick Start guide such as the hostname, domain name, and IP settings for both IPv4 and IPv6.

Skipping a few basic pages and we’re at the port forwarding page. We can forward port ranges as well as set up triggers.

The Service Management button will pop up a little extra window with most default port settings ready to click and apply. You can also add new ones yourself.

The Port address translation (PAT) is a function that allows multiple users within a private network to share a single public IP address between multiple clients who need to use the Internet publicly.

The One-to-One NAT feature is a simple way to make systems behind a firewall and configured with private IP addresses appear to have public IP addresses.

You can have the router clone your PC’s MAC address or you can define one yourself. Normally this isn’t a much-used function, but it’s great to have when needed.

There are several dynamic DNS providers that you can setup directly in the LRT214. Dynamic DNS used to be a feature mostly used by amateur hosters, but now has become a vital feature for many more as IP4 addresses have grown sparse and the prices for static IPs has gone up.

We’re almost through the first and biggest section of the GUI and it is time to look at the advanced routing options for both IPv4 and IPv6. The router can run in two modes, as a gateway and as a router.

The IPv4 and IPv6 settings are almost identical, but there are a few things more and general things on the IPv4 page.

The outgoing email settings are vital, but self-explanatory.

The last point is for IPv6 Transition where we can enable the 6to4 tunnel.

DHCP Setup

On of the main features in a router is its ability to hand out IP addresses to connecting clients and naturally, it needs some settings to know how you want it to behave. You’ll find all possible settings you could want here and you can configure it just the way it is needed in your setup.

I don’t think there is much to say to these screenshots, the text on them speaks for itself.

MAC binding is a great way to make sure the same network cards always get the same IP address. A bound address won’t be taken by another client and will as such be free for the intended system at all times.

Last but not least, you can create your own local DNS database too.

System Management

The system management section defines rules for the router itself such as the Network Service Detection and Protocol Binding to specific IP addresses.

Bandwidth caps can be set manually and controlled by filters to your liking.

Session control is self explanatory, but a great feature in a business class router such as this LRT214 by Linksys.

SNMP Trapping is also supported.

And so is the ability to change the SSL certificate, as mentioned earlier.

Port Management

The port management is definitely a section you’ll want to check out and configure to match your setup.

You can view detail information on all ports, both LAN and WAN.

802.1Q VLAN tagging is naturally also supported.