sonicwalls

Seems like at least one person on this forum has used this before. So I'll give it a shot. Anyone heard of or used SonicWalls broadband routers?

I had an encounter with two of them last week. A client of mine owns a small office in a mall, and his home office at home. He has the wireless version at home, I forget what model, and a wired one at the office.

I setup NAT/DHCP on it and all the clients (2 at office, 6 at home) at able to connect to all resources (files, printers) The awkward thing with them was that I could not find any options to config port forwarding. I was trying to set up VNC for him so that he could access a special DOS program he uses, but I couldnt couldnt find any ways to forward the port.

The routers has firewall access rules from which I was able to forward terminal services, so I figured I'd use Remote Desktop...but unfortunately, his home computer didnt have WinXP Pro. He was nice enough to fork out money and bought winxp....so in the end, I was able to do what he wanted.

He never explained how and why he got the sonicwalls, but I'm assuming the last network tech. he hired told him to get them. From what I observed, it's really complicated, and he didnt need half the features, nor did it do what he wanted.

Any others with experience on these units? I was told the wired router was 400CAD(~350USD) and the wireless was 650CAD(~565USD)

Cheers.

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Comments

keatron

A lot of small and medium size businesses use Sonicwall products. The number one reason is usually for the content filtering capabilities. While I wouldn't really recommend it as a hard core firewall solution, it's pretty impressive when it comes to content filtering and the likes. Also, if you purchase the anti-virus solution, it rolls out automatic updates to the virus signature files (they use a McAfee engine I think). It also will not allow a user to connect to the internet without having the most current sigs. More over, it wont let them connect if they don't have any anti-virus installed at all. Small companies running without a full-time admin or a full-time security person benefit quite nicely from those features alone.

keatron

TeKniques

Thanks for the review Keatron. We have a Watchguard that I absolutely hate and I want to replace. I could probably fill 2 forum pages with all the problems I have had with it

. From just what you said the Sonicwall has some good features that the company I work for would benefit from.

Danman32

If you get the model number, I can get the user manual and tell you where to configure the forwarding. Sometimes different names are used for it, like virtual server, remote services, etc.

blackzone

I don't know about router, but from memory, I always thought it's a firewall product(or is more gear for firewall with some routing capability).

rossonieri#1

hello,

basically ('if i'm not miss spell') - what you have used to forward RDP would apply to your VNC connection only with different port : 5800(default), 5801,5900 etc.
cant get your friend to connect mean what way? auth?

cheers.

bighornsheep

rossonieri#1 wrote:

hello,

basically ('if i'm not miss spell') - what you have used to forward RDP would apply to your VNC connection only with different port : 5800(default), 5801,5900 etc.
cant get your friend to connect mean what way? auth?

cheers.

yeah...I know what port to forward....but I couldnt find the option to do that with the router web management.

There is an access list with the firewall options, but it only allows certain apps to go through...remote desktop, http, ftp, etc...

bighornsheep

I went back to setup remote desktop for another one of their system. I was finally able to find where to set port forwarding.

SonicWalls works with access lists, and I had to add a custom service first, and then permit that service with the access list...A little bit tricky, but it makes sense to do it that way I suppose...

Thanks you guys~