Home > Consumer Reviews > Cisco RV042 4-port 10/100 VPN Router - Dual WAN

I wanted a low-cost VPN solution and had been debating purchasing the Cisco 501 PIX firewall and Netscreen's lowest end 5GT VPN router (which costs $450 + maintenance/support contracts) before discovering this bargain model. Tom's Networking Hardware has a good review about the RV082 holding up with Netscreen's 5GT VPN router in performance tests, which pretty much convinced me to get this Linksys brand. I use the RV082 for our main office and the RV042 as a client in our remote office in mainland China, so I can't say for sure that an RV042-RV042 solution works. Note: If you intend to purchase this model and use it for an international location, however, you do need to purchase a separate 220 volt/1000 mA/12 volt adapter, since the unit only comes with a 110 volt adapter. (Linksys apparently has yet to provide a universal power adapter for this product line.)

I thought the RV042 would be exactly the same as the RV082 except with 4 ports instead of 8. However, I found that the firmware is still a bit behind the RV082 (the RV042 also does not come with an internal PPTP server, though this PPTP server is still not compatible with the Win2000/XP PPTP client). One major benefit of the RV082 is that it comes with a free VPN client called QuickVPN (downloadable in the same section where the RV082 firmware is located). Unlike other Linksys VPN routers, the RV082 using the QuickVPN client avoids the trouble of needing to follow a 16-page procedure for configuring a Win2000/XP client to access the VPN.

The RV082 firmware (v1.1.6.3) contains an "HTTP Service" option that must be enabled to provide QuickVPN support. The QuickVPN client appears to retrieve some VPN server information through https:// requests, which isn't evident unless you look closely at the wget_error.txt located inside the C:\Program Files\Linksys\Linksys VPN Client directory. The RV042 firmware (1.3.1) does not yet support this feature, but their current BETA version (v1.3.3) does (downloaded from linksysinfo.org). Linksys has yet to officially release this firmware, so be forewarned!

The RV units may also be compatible with other VPN brands. We had been using the really flaky Symantec 200 VPN units and managed to get one of the units to negotiate a IPSEC tunnel with the RV042 and RV082. You can use the VPN log feature to see if the negotiation works. Enable the keep-alive option in the Advanced features to help maintain a persistent tunnel too!

Instructions for QuickVPN and setting up the RV042:

1. Upgrade to the latest firmware version (1.3.3 beta off Linksysinfo.org. Additional note: There are reports of problems with the the 1.3.6 beta so have stayed away from using it.)

2. Inside the "Firewall" section, enable the HTTPS service. Make sure to Save Settings too.

3. Inside the "VPN" section, click on the VPN Client Users. Add a username and password that will be used for the QuickVPN Client. Make sure the user that you will be using is selected as Active.

4. Make sure that your client's NAT/firewall has IPSEC passthrough capability turned-on. If you don't, you may see that the QuickVPN client successfully connects but freezes at "Verifying Network".

5. Your client's IP subnet should not conflict with the other remote networks (i.e. Your client subnet should be 192.168.2.0 if your remote networks use 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.1.0)

6. Verify that the IPSEC services is running on your Windows machine.

7. If you are running Windows XP SP2, you need to disable the Windows Firewall. You may also see the connection established but QuickVPN get stuck at the "Verifying Network" message.

A good place to debug your problem is to look at the error logs in the wget_error.txt in the directory where the QuickVPN client is installed (i.e. C:\Program Files\Linksys). The wget program apparently tries to connect via HTTPS to the RV042/RV08 to obtain VPN server information. If the connection is successful, you can see several .conf files downloaded into the same directory.

One another note: Both the RV042 and RV082 have a second WAN port for load-balancing, but I've seen enough reports to stay away from using this feature until Linksys manages to resolves the issues in the firmware.

Strengths:
Great little unit for the high tech home. Load balanced Internet connection options are great. Decent firewall. Good PnP.

Weaknesses:
Make sure that you upgrade to Firmware Version: 1.3.7.4. The VPN for earlier versions is a little complicated to connect to from xp/2000 Client.

I am using the RV042 and a RV082 to connect an office in the US with an office in East Europe. The VPN is working perfectly.
- Excellent performance.
- Very reliable.

This is a typical Linksys product where the hardware design is excellent, software design is mediocre and documentation is lacking.

This router is perfect for home, SOHO or (very) small office use. The router is an extremely fast device and the firewall very capable. It also does a very good job of IPSEC and PPTP VPN access and has no problem supporting multiple connections (which is something my DD-WRT enabled WRT54GL could not handle).

The Linksys QuickVPN software is frustrating to get working. If will renumber your internal network whenever someone uses the software. So be aware that you must number your network in the 10.x.x.x address range even though the router comes out of the box numbered as 192.168.1.1. There is only one place I found this little bit of information and without it, I would have never figured out why QuickVPN doesn't work. QuickVPN only permits you to usurp the default gateway of the machine to your remote network. However, once it is working, it's very fast.

The router does not support DNSMASQ. For larger businesses, this isn't a problem because ostensibly they would have the resources to run their own name servers. But for home or SOHO users, this represents a problem because you have to manually enter the target nameservers. This may not sound like much of a problem until your ISP changes nameservers and then your connectivity will start to fail on name lookups. As anyone who has been faced with such a situation, the symptoms can point to any number of issues.

Configuring IPSEC is not a trivial matter for the uninitiated. If you purchase this router with the intention of using it for IPSEC and this is your first time doing it, buy yourself a book that covers IPSEC. While the Linksys web interface is adequate, it doesn't help you figure out what is wrong. If you understand how it works, then you'll be able to troubleshoot problems and get this feature to work. It *does work*, and it works very well with my Macbook and my Windows machines.

Router supports syslog support or emailing of logs and alerts. Works great with PPPoE, and connects quickly.

I gave this product 3 stars because the shortcomings are noticeable. It's a great little firewall and router; it's very fast, quiet, small and does a great job. But it lacks because of documentation, the glaring omission of no DNSMASQ and a web interface that is tricky to maneuver.

If you do not need client-to-gateway IPSEC tunnels and want a much quicker client solution, look at the Linksys RVL200 SSL VPN. That box was my first choice, but only supports gateway-to-gateway VPNs (which won't work on the Mac).

The main reason I bought this router was for its dedicated DMZ port. What good is this? Since the RV042 has three discrete ethernet controllers (one for the WAN, one for the LAN, and one for the DMZ) you can easily create routine rules that allows a machine to be visible to the internet AND keep your LAN safe.

Many low end home routers have a DMZ-like facility, but this really just opens up a single port to a computer within your LAN. The problem with this is that if the "DMZ" computer gets compromised it is on your LAN! That means other machines could potentially get compromised.

This is not the case with the RV042. You can create routing rules that explicitly state what connections are allowed and what connections are disallowed. For example, any computer on my LAN can access any computer on my DMZ, however my DMZ can not access my LAN. This allows for excellent security.

The router supports the syslog protocol which allows you to send its system logs to a centralized logging system. This is a very common configuration for UNIX systems.

The one thing I would change about the RV042 is to give it 1000BaseT ports. You can simply add a Linksys SD2008 to accomplish this.

I own two of these, and had no problems getting vpn up and rolling, but after 1.5 years, I've had both units fail within a month of one another (both just started blinking warning - fried - both in different locations in the us), and fell in with linksys's absolute crap-poor technical support. I ended up finding it a better use of my time just to dump these units and replace them than deal with linksys's absolutely insanely bad indian technical support.

Here's the hard part. I replaced the first unit, and it fried to. So, I'm out 450 bucks, and then I call technical support, and they won't support the older units even though I have just purchased a new one, and want to charge me $35 bucks because one of the 2 units I'm trying to get vpn working with is "out of warranty" even though the one I'm trying to configure it brand new! What the heck? Not to mention the level of technical competency of the people I was on the phone with was next to nothing (total script readers), and they wouldn't listen to common sense - oh, and I got disconnected all the time.

As a VERY long time customer (almost from their inception), I'm never buying another product from them. They've made some very bad business choices, and their support and product quality has dropped to third world levels. I can't believe this is a Cisco company - they should be ashamed of their acquisition.

Do yourself a favor. Run away from Linksys.