[rescue] OT - Cisco 678 ADSL router any good?

[Phil Brutsche]

On Sun, 2001-12-30 at 13:22, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> On another list, someone is offering a Cisco 678 ADSL router.
> 
> Hoping that the list can help me, here are my q's:
> 
> 1.  my DSL provider uses BOTH PPPOE -AND- PPTP (I suppose for
> authentication).

Run away.  Very quickly.  PPTP effectively makes this service
Windows-only territory!  (You might be able to get PopTop to work in
that config, but no guarantees).

> Does the 678 support this?

Not directly.  The 678 will be configured as a DSL<->Ethernet bridge. 
Effectively your PC becomes the DSL router.

> 2.  It runs CBOS instead of IOS, is that right?

Correct.

> Is that a bad thing?

Yes.  It's not all that different from using a sub-$100 Linksys router -
which, incidentally, does PPPoE as well.  Just not PPTP.

Don't let the Cisco name fool you - it's only barely useful as a
router!  The real thing does stuff like policy routing & QoS - you have
*no* idea how useful both of those facilities can be until you've tried
them.

> 3.  Does it let me do NAT (I assume so)

Yes

> and also have a DMZ, where
> incoming requests on the public IP address get sent to a specific
> machine on the network?

1) that's not a DMZ
2) no, they don't

> This would let me do dyndns-type goodness.
> 
> 4. What is a lightly used one worth?

Used market sucks - 675s (a sort of little brother to the 678) are 
$50-$70 or so.

> I know some of you here are Cisco gurus - don't hold back, tell me
> what you really think :-)

I'm not a Cisco guru, but I have more experience than I want cursing
Cisco's 67x line of routers.


Phil