Question 1

Do I need to purchase a support contract in order to have access to firmware/IOS updates?

Accepted Answer

I did firmware updates on all the Cisco equipment I purchased last year before putting that network segment into production.   A free Cisco Web account is needed.  But not a service contract.

Question 2

Under Access Control in Specs it says "MAC-based wireless access control".  Is this Wireless?  I need to be sure that it is NOT.

Accepted Answer

Joseph, I can confirm for you that it is NOT wireless. I believe what it means by this is that if you have compatible switches and access points connected to this router, It can control wireless access based on MAC addresses. I have WAP4410's connected with various VLANS but all devices show up as "wired" because my switches don't relay that information.

Question 3

Does this router have keyhole slots for vertical mounting in a structured wiring box?

Accepted Answer

yes there are two of them.

Question 4

does this have a firewall? I don't want one.

Accepted Answer

This device has a firewall feature.

However, the milage you get from this type of firewall is also dependent upon your requirements.

I leave the firewall open, and secure the connections with an IPTables or IPFW/PF firewall, since i need more complexity than what this device provides.

However, this device has a firewall, and limited number of vpn connections.

We have been using them in our organization since purchase, Auguest 2013.

Question 5

Is this router installed behind the current firewall or in front?  How If behind is some sort of NAT required on the firewall  for connections to be able to  connect to the vpn router?

Accepted Answer

I don't know if this is going to help you or not, but I will tell you how I use this router.  Coming into my house, the first device is the DSL Modem - this I have put in "bridge" or "passthrough" mode where it basically is acting as nothing more than an Ethernet to ATM translator, with all ISP addressing, etc. being assigned directly to the Cisco Router, which makes it very easy to view and configure all DSL authentication and  Internet addressing configuration.
The Cisco router is the only device I have between the Internet and my internal network.  It does both NAT and acts as a DHCP server on the Internal side for devices on my internal network.  In otherwords, it assigns addresses automatically on the 192.168 private network, while translating to the single ISP Public Internet Address that actually it is getting from the ISP by being a DHCP client on the WAN side.
I am not using the VPN feature of this router, however, I could very easily implement it in order to tunnel through from the outside to my Internal network, as it would automatically open the necessary ports for this without me having to manually configure them.  Note that this router is NOT a wireless access point as well, which is what I wanted, as I have a separate Wireless Access Point on the internal network (also "Real Cisco", not Linksys, which I control security by using a MAC address list.  Both of these "Real" Cisco devices have been very reliable with few problems.  The only negative feature, which is true with each, but more so with the router, is that entering the configuration mode, saving the configuration, etc. is a rather very slow process and you have to be patient.  This is probably due to actually the many other Advanced configuration features of this router (it really can do a lot!!!) which I do not use.  The configuration screens are clear & concise, but more require some networking knowledge to use effectively

Question 6

Can each LAN port be configured for different networks?
e.g. port 1 = 192.168.1.0  port 2= 10.10.10.0

Accepted Answer

James, not without two other 'slave' routers connected to two different Ethernet network ports on the 'master' RV180 router to "host" the different networks' IP addresses. The RV180 acts as a 'master' router for the two 'slave' routers and connected directly to your ISP.
Setting up the IP addresses on the 'slave' routers can be tricky. Just think of the 'slave' routers as two-faced, with the face towards the 'master' router having with one set of IP addresses (i.e., 192.168.1.x), and the other face having it's own set of IP addresses (i.e., 192.168.2.x & 192.168.3.x).

That's what I did. I have a Personal/Family network on one port, and a Work network on another port. Each 'slave' network has it's own wireless router and different IP address ranges.
Your example shows an address range of 10.10.10.0 and says you might possibly be thinking of putting an Apple Airport router and a non-Apple router on your proposed network.

I tried this, and ran into problems, as I found that Apple Airport routers require a special firmware update to be connected this way.
Since Apple computers and devices can run fine on non-Apple routers, I suggest just using two different non-Apple 'slave' routers.
I have an old Apple eMac PC (running OS X 10.4.x) on my Work network for testing purposes. Miles W.

Question 7

what is the wan to lan throughput of this router?

Accepted Answer

I think the question is how many Mbps can he get from inside his LAN to the Internet.

Question 8

How many access rules can be used in this device? There is normally a maximum number, what is it for this router?

The RVS 4000 which this replaces, had a maximum of 50 rules.

Accepted Answer

The limit is 30. This router is meant for small business that are only going to do a light load of rules. If you are in need of an intensive amount of rules you're going to want to go with a higher level firewall such as a Cisco ASA 5505.

Question 9

I bought one of these back in Jan, great product.
However, in transit, someone has misplaced the Power Adapter.
Is there a way to get a replacement adapter?
Or can I get the specifics on the adapter so as to get a replacement from somewhere else? Voltage out, Amps out, plug info for router, etc.

Accepted Answer

Hey Paul,

No idea about replacement, but here are the specs:

Sunny Computer Technology Co, Ltd.
Switching Adapter
Model No.  SYS 1381-1212-W2
Part No.  SYS 1381-1212-W2 (4KV)

Input: 100-240V - 0.5A MAX, 50-60Hz
Output: 12V --- 1.0A
Output Power: 12W MAX
Plug: center is +, outer ring is -

Good luck.

Question 10

Will this router work well with 3 of the WAP3211-A-K9?  I'm looking to set up 3 of these access points and have everything hooked into this router.  This will cover a internet lounge type of setup.

Thanks

Accepted Answer

I have this product in several different sites with great results.

Two of the sites has additional access points with a total of
8 - 12 PC's and network printers.

Brand	Cisco Small Business
Model	RV180-K9-NA

Standards	IEEE, 802.3, 802.3u, 802.1D, 802.1p, 802.11e, 802.11w (Rapid Spanning Tree) 802.1X (security authentication), 802.1Q (VLAN),IPv4 (RFC 791), IPv6 (RFC 2460), Routing Information Protocol (RIP) v1 (RFC 1058), RIP v2 (RFC 1723)
Protocols	Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) DNS proxy DHCP relay agent IGMP Proxy and multicast forwarding Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) Dynamic Domain Name System (TZO, DynDNS, 3322.org) Network Address Translation (NAT), Port Address Translation (PAT) One-to-One NAT Port management Port mirroring Software configurable DMZ to any LAN IP address Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Application Layer Gateways (ALG)
Speed	10/100/1000Mbps
Security	Stateful packet inspection (SPI) firewall, port forwarding and triggering, denial-of-service (DoS) prevention, software-based DMZ Access Control: IP access control lists; MAC-based wireless access control Content Filtering: Static URL blocking or keyword blocking Secure Management: HTTPS, username/password complexity Certificate Management: Self-signed SSL certificate, import/export certificate using Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM) format User Privileges: 2 levels of access: admin and guest
WAN Ports	1 x 10/100/1000Mbps
LAN Ports	4 x 10/100/1000Mbps
LEDs	Power, WAN, LAN (Ports 1-4)
VPN	IPsec VPN: 10 gateway-to-gateway IPsec tunnels QuickVPN: 10 Quick VPN tunnels using Cisco QuickVPN client PPTP VPN: 10 PPTP tunnels for remote client access Encryption: Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES), Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Authentication: MD5/SHA1 VPN Pass-through: IPsec/PPTP/Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) pass-through
Temperature	0°C - 40°C
Humidity	10% - 85%, Non-condensing

Cisco Small Business RV180-K9-NA RV180 VPN Router 1 x 10/100/1000Mbps WAN Ports 4 x 10/100/1000Mbps LAN Ports

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Item#: N82E16833150141