Cisco Small Business RV082 Dual WAN VPN Router

Pros: After haphazardly trying to get a Cisco 900 series to work and failing miserably (who knew command line could be so complex?), I just opted for this unit. However, after searching through all the forums, I realized there are 3 hardware revisions to this unit, none of which are clearly labeled in any ad. But through experience, Newegg almost always carries the latest revision and sure enough, this router is version 3, the most stable of the lot. Benefits of version 3:

-Completed re-worked OS for version 3
-Simplified/Unified Interface with a text based GUI
-Straight Forward Option Settings
-Ability to Throttle bandwidth based on single or IP range
-Ability to QoS based on single or IP range
-8 ports + a 9th WAN port that can be used either a failover WAN interface OR as a DMZ WAN interface (easily selectable in the GUI)
-Multiple VLAN support
-Extremely stable. Previous Netgear ProSafe router was good for 3 years, then would reboot every week. This unit, since installation, has not had a reboot or WAN failure, which is now 42 days and counting

Cons: No LAN Gigabit
No WiFi version of router like its entry level cousin, the Cisco 800/900 series, which has an available adapter, instead of wiring in a separate AP unit

Other Thoughts: Cisco re-worked revision 3 hardware to break away from versions 1 and 2, which were still at their core, Linksys hardware and OS. The OS and interface here strongly mirror what is available on the entry enterprise level Cisco 800/900, which practically by definition, are rock solid. Cisco made things right with this piece of hardware by taking a good idea and making it really their own, instead of just re-branding it, like the version 1 and 2.

If you go searching through different vendors, you will see a photo with the black face of the version 3, but upon delivery, will only receive and a version 1 or 2. Spare yourself the trouble and go through Newegg and get a guaranteed version 3!

Pros: This unit performs it's basic functions perfectly. I currently and running 5 of these for years now with slight issues. So far I have yet to have one quit. When we recently changed one of our providers they mentioned we needed to use their router. I was able to prove their router was unable to perform as well as this unit.

Dual wan fail-over is great when one of our isp providers go down especially in the business environment. The unit also has minor content filtering on it that is ok but recently is unable to fully fit our needs. VPN feature works well and is usually restored automatically if environmental power failure occurs.

Protectlink is a good feature for blanket blocking unauthorized websites and internet usage.

Cons: As with any product as business needs grow demands change. One problem is in this day and age unauthorized usage of the internet has become a major problem for businesses. I currently and implementing a user based internet access content filtering system. My options are to either replace this unit with a more advanced system.

If it was possible to add this as a feature even if it is a paid service I would stick with these routers. Protectlink can do most of what I would like but certain sites need to be opened to certain users. So far you get all or none.

Other Thoughts: There is a group that is cracking firmwares with open source firmware. Unfortunately this is not available on the RV082 yet and had been WIP for over a year now.

I thought I might include a perfect example for people not understanding my content filtering comments above. Once site that gets unauthorized use is facebook. So of course I could just block facebook. However the company has a facebook site that sales managers use for announcing new incentives. At times some customers will even ask a question on facebook.

No longer am I able to just block facebook. Using a user access content filter allows me to permit only certain users to access restricted sites.

Pros: Seems stable, fairly easy to configure.

Cons: Slow through put. Not as fast as a netgear model that I replaced. Have a small peer-to-peer network connected to the internet via satellite. Internet through put is what it is with a satellite connect, but network file transfers can be fairly fast, or painfully slow. It seems to depend on the cable length between the router and the computer, but there are no cable runs that exceed 50'. Pretty disappointed with overall network performance. There was no increase in performance with the latest firmware upgrade either.

Other Thoughts: I should have returned it, but it was working, albeit somewhat slowly on the internal network. It's at a remote site, so I really can't do anything about it now. I hope that there will be a firmware upgrade that will help.

Pros: ..

Cons: Do not purchase this if you plan to use PPPOE with a DSL modem in bridged mode. This router, as well as the previous iteration RV016, is not capable of logging in via PPPOE. Google these issues before purchasing.

Pros: - Decent features dealing with Dual WAN
- Plenty of VPN Features
- Interface is easy to use

Cons: -Unstable - I must restart this thing everyday or it just stops routing internet traffic and won't respond via web-interface. Very annoying.

Pros: None.

Cons: Not sure which is worse, the actually router or Cisco’s tech support for the router.

Pros: None for Cisco version...

Cons: From reading the reviews here as of lately, it seems that my concerns are valid. The older "Linksys RV082" was a much better device. I used one for years in an SMB environment with RV042's in outer offices. They performed flawlessly. The new version is, well, horrible. Not sure why Cisco needed to "fix" it.
- Much more comlicated than before.
- Many odd bugs that can't be resolved.
- VPN not as solid as before

Other Thoughts: Cisco products always have had a differentness to them. Not sure why they felt the need to mess this product up. I wish they'd left it alone and just introduced a completely different device instead. Kind of like how they did with the old 54's, which are still available.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Nargg,

We’re sorry to hear that you’re dissatisfied with the RV082 router. Without knowing your specific configuration, it's difficult for us to offer assistance. Did you try contacting support (http://www.cisco.com/go/smallbizhelp) or check the Small Business Support Community (http://www.cisco.com/go/smallbizsupport) for help troubleshooting the issues you encountered with the RV082? Both resources are great places to ask questions and get help.

Andrea
Cisco Small Business Team

Pros: Easy to install and configure.

Can be set to block Java and ActiveX

Cons: Lack of fine grained firewall configuration options.
Blocks far more than the documentation suggests.

Other Thoughts: I have a Windows 2008 R2 DNS server installed behind this thing. After turning on the router, the DNS server service started failing every couple of hours.

Turns out Windows 2008 R2 DNS uses the EDNS0 extension for DNS requests. EDNS0 responses are generally larger 512 bytes in size.. which this router blocks or truncates (not sure which).

Regardless, due to the invalid DNS responses that are caused by this, the 2008 R2 DNS service will shut down with errors about invalid DNS packets.

I couldn't locate a way to increase the size of the UDP packet size on the router, nor could I figure out a way to just shut that one "feature" off. Note, Cisco generally calls this DNS-Guard; however this isn't listed as a feature of this device.

The only workaround is to tell the windows server to not send EDNS0 requests.

Pros: Manages dual WAN, intuitive interface.

Cons: There's a bug with firmware 4.0.2.08, which it shipped with. If you try to forward port 443 for HTTPS, say to your Exchange server, then it will not work until you turn off HTTPS in Firewall / General.

Other Thoughts: Hope the next guy finds this review so he doesn't have to beat his head against the wall like I did!

Pros: None

Cons: Let me start by saying this router has fantastic functionality, but the limitations on it are just ridiculous. Here's a few examples:

*Only allows class C ip address for LAN
*Only allows ONE single public IP address on WAN
*Only allows 30 port forwards

I just can't wrap my head around the fact they only allow a class C ip address. This model router actually allowed you to set any IP you wanted before, it wasn't until firmware 3.x came out that it was restricted. Why would they do that? Well when you figure the lowest model router that does allow you to is twice the price and has about half the functionality this one has.....I think the reasoning behind Cisco's motives are clear.

Other Thoughts: Support is useless & very defensive, almost like they have gotten this before. Really disappointed in this unit, it has such potential to be a fantastic machine and the stupid limitations put on it by Cisco make it next to useless. Linksys is who made this device to start with and it was fantastic until Cisco got ahold of it and put these restrictions on it because then it would render some of their other, more expensive, products futile. Cisco has so dropped out of being the front runner in networking, they really have. We go with Adtran routers and so far have been very impressed. Check them out.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi SportShopDirect,

We’re sorry to hear about your experience with the RV082 router. To address the LAN issue, multiple LAN subnets can be defined on RV082, but the embedded DHCP Server only supports a class C network. It would require more processing power and SDRAM for RV082 to support bigger networks. In response to it only allowing a single public IP address on WAN, RV082 does support multiple WAN interfaces, and its 1-to-1 NAT feature supports multiple public IP addresses per WAN interface. Additional documentation can be found here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9923/tsd_products_support_series_home.html. We have designed this model with just 30 ports because we believe 30 port range forwarding rules are sufficient for most small business environments.

Thanks very much for your feedback.

Diana
Cisco Small Business Team