Can a Cisco RV-34X be used to connect to a commercial VPN like NorthVPN, Cyperghost op Perfect Privacy?

[Dr.Dial]

Hi! i was wondering if a Cisco RV-34X could be used to connect to a VPN Service like NorthVPN, Cyperghost or Perfect Privacy? I know the RV34X is gonna be EOL soon but I was just wondering if these routers could do that (out of curiosity). I found a few threads on the web were people asked similar questions, but have not received an answer. I also know that the RV34X does not support OpenVPN which is mostly used by those VPN providers. Some of then do support IKEv2 and L2TP/IPSEC, but they use MS-CHAP2...

To make a long story short. Do you think this would work?

 

[L&LD]

Considering all the research you've done and presented, no.

 

[coxhaus]

Cisco makes the best enterprise VPNs in the world, but they use their own.
When I worked many years ago, we used all Cisco VPN but being retired I have no reason to use a VPN now, so I have not tested any VPNs on my Cisco RV340 router. And I don't know if the Cisco small business routers actually runs the Cisco enterprise VPNs. It might take a license and might not as I have heard you get 1 VPN with the RV340 router.
We ran all 3DES/IPSEC back in the day. I am not sure 3DES is allowed out of the US. It wasn't back then.

Here is what is under my VPN on my RV340 router. There are a lot of options.

 

[Tech Junky]

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I've used the Synology but, briefly for reasons not being the VPN capability. It's a nice piece of gear it just didn't do what I wanted to do.

The bigger thing to look for is a provider that supports wireguard i.e. nordlynx... They all have cute marketing names for the protocol but, the importance is for bandwidth / resources.

OVPN maxes out @ 50% of line speed typically where WG hits line speed. This is even more important on consumer black boxes because they lack the CPU oomph to process things beyond ~600mbps w/ VPN. Go DIY though and the sky is the limit. I've been using Nord for years now and WG was a big deciding factor because it's noticeably faster and less CPU intensive. As you need more bandwidth it scales up with more process threads and when the need goes down those threads die off giving you back resources.

 

[Dr.Dial]

@coxhaus

Are you using that RV340 at your home right now? I mean from what I read those SB routers don't bring much benefit to home a network environment.

 

[Tech9]

Do you think this would work?

I remember doing some experiments years ago and none of them was successful. Not only no OpenVPN support, but the hardware is quite slow too. Even if it was supported and working, the throughput would be severely limited. Your best consumer router options for VPN is newer models using CPU with AES support. The best VPN control firmware is Asuswrt-Merlin with VPN Director and Wireguard support. The most popular router model around is Asus RT-AX86U with RT-AX86S as cheaper option. You are still looking at old routers. I don't know why.

Reliability of Linksys ea6900 and ea6350

Hi! I'm currently looking for a new router as I'm upgrading my ISP speed. So far I've been using my old WRT54G which works well with a 32 Mbit Line. I don't care that it's old as it proved very reliable (I hardly ever had any freezes or connection drops in 15 Years). But now that I'm upgrading...

www.snbforums.com

Perfect Privacy

There is no perfect privacy online. There is no perfect privacy offline too.

 

[coxhaus]

@coxhaus

Are you using that RV340 at your home right now? I mean from what I read those SB routers don't bring much benefit to home a network environment.

Yes. It is rock solid as it never goes down except when I put on new firmware. I have a small APC that keeps it up unless it is a long power outage. They are getting a little old. It will be replaced sometime in the future. Cisco has not named a replacement but maybe in the future. So far on my list is Untangle and a baby Cisco Firepower.

If I was running an all-in-one router I might look at OpenWRT. I like what I have read but I have actually not run one. I like separates.

Remember, I have no need for VPN since I am retired. So really it is not a deciding point for me even though the Cisco baby Firepower will run like 80 enterprise VPN connections. I am sure at a great cost which I won't buy the license for.

I guess you know VPN only encrypts data not any of your routing information which has to stay public so they can send return packets through the net. So everywhere you have been is readable by the public. Every network hop adds a packet header and trailer.

 

[Dr.Dial]

@Tech9



Hey there!

I’m not considering buying such a Cisco. As I stated in my other post, I’ll probably go with the AX-RT86U, the one you recommended. I’m looking at some older routers to compare and get an overview of what they can (and cannot) do and what has changed. Our conversation about business grade routes in my other thread got me interested in networking, protocols and configurations.

I’m trying to understand cisco world because their hardware used to be (prop. still is) one of the most professional and powerful around (ignoring the fact that one does not benefit from that when using in a home environment). On the other hand, coxhaus uses such a RV340 at home and from what I read he’s pretty happy with it. Again, I’m not considering actually buying one for myself for the reasons we discussed in my other thread (being EOL soon, pricing, lots of features that would be unused but paid for, etc.). But I think comparing performance and capability with a cisco helps with orientation.

You did bring up a very interesting point here that I have overlooked, namely the CPU’s AES support which seems to be a key factor when it comes to speed. Ok…

But I’m wondering how acceptable speeds were attained in the past? For e.g. ten years ago people outside the U.S. were using VPNs to watch Netflix in their home country. Now think about that: Videos streaming is among the most bandwidth eating applications and in a time when router HW was significantly slower than today, a good VPN speed was achievable.



BTW. By ‘perfect privacy’ I meant the VPN service ‘perfect-privacy.com’ not a perfect privacy by itself.

 

[L&LD]

Streaming isn't really bandwidth intensive. It adjusts to the bandwidth available (at the cost of video quality).

 

[coxhaus]

The Cisco RV340 router is plenty fast using a Cisco L3 switch. The L3 switch does all the local work. The CPU probably is a little slow for wide bandwidth VPN. But it opens and closes the internet door fine not using VPN.

If I was going to run Untangle right now I might buy something like this. This should keep the IDS/IPS lag down so it works well with games. I find with little slow CPUs there is too much lag using IDS/IPS.
Dell Precision 3420 SFF - No OS | Dell Refurbished
I think it is a good price for speed.

 

[degrub]

i'm still using my RV325 and 371 APs on 5Ghz on AT&T Gbit fiber. Rock solid, used for routing and firewall only. Ran great for 38 Mbit/s ADSL with family of 5, 2 working from home and three teenagers doing their usual. Individual user or AP restricted to 500 mbit/s by using moca 2 to distribute to APs and wired users. No slow downs noticed. Had no need to VPN into my lan, so avoided that loading.

bought them for reliability and stability which they have done well .

 

[Dr.Dial]

i'm still using my RV325 and 371 APs on 5Ghz on AT&T Gbit fiber.

Have you tested your bandwidth using speedtest.net (or similar) ever since you upgraded to a Gbit line? Going by SNB's review and performance test (and assuming that the RV320 and RV325 are identical in throughput), the RV320 does not even do the 1Gb. It says here that the WAN-LAN throughput is 887.0 Mbps. It should slow your connection down... at least a bit.

 

[degrub]

Going through moca2.0 bonded turbo modems to get to the RV325 should limit test to theoretical 940/940. So no effect. That is what i get with iperf on the lan connections across my local moca based network using the switch side of the RV.

Just now speedtest.net to local AT&T server D/U 709/811 from a Win7x64 i7-6700 CPU, Firefox latest. YMMV. 700/870 just now.

When i set up the connection between the ONT and the AT&T router with MOCA2.5 modems, i tested directly from same machine connected to the RV router lan port. It was 900/921 to the AT&T server that day. i am double NATed behind the AT&T provided router, so not a "clean " test of the RV.

Any other server outside of AT&T peaks lower at around 500-670 up/down as expected.