hosting personal webserver. recommendation for a router?

[sporkit]

ive been hosting my sites out of my basement for a few years now. recently however, ive been experienceing some problems with connectivity. my little linksys router occationally locks up and starts blinking all its ports (network storm?).

anyway, this means my sites are constantly gonig down. as im trying to narrow down the problem i was wondering if i should upgrade my router.

my setup:
the router is forwarding port 80 to my webserver and i have about 6-7 comptuers on my network at once (usually only 2-3 using the internet at the same time). these computers are hooked up in different rooms some with switches in them to break up the connection again. also 2 of the computers are running off my wireless (which i have secured and is setup for temp purposes please dont discuss this here).

to be completely honest though i think my dsl provieder is having problems with their dns servers. a tracert to my sites shows hops getting stuck around sbc.chicago.net. even though im about to switch providers soon i still want to upgrade the router.

any suggestions for greater reliability or a router for a guy hosting small to medium sized sites from home?

[bsm2001]

The other possibility could be the outside phone lines. If they are old then you aare more than likley getting errors between your modem & the telco. I have been fighting with my ISP & Phone co about our 40+ year old lines outside and they all say that unless the line fall to the ground as long as my phone works then they will not replace the lines. have a look into that posibility also.

[je_fro]

I use an old PC with 3 or 4 nics in it. You'll need a few crossover cables and a good NAT script, but all that is easily obtained.

[thaddaeus]

first off what linksys router do you own and have you checked firmware upgrades for it? I run a web server off a wrt54g and have never had any problems with it and serving content, even ssh ftp and telnet all work fine. if it is the hardware itself, them i'd still go with a linksys, sense they were taking over by cicso i ahvn't had any hardware problems (i own the router and cable modem from them)

[sporkit]

Originally posted by thaddaeus
first off what linksys router do you own and have you checked firmware upgrades for it? I run a web server off a wrt54g and have never had any problems with it and serving content, even ssh ftp and telnet all work fine. if it is the hardware itself, them i'd still go with a linksys, sense they were taking over by cicso i ahvn't had any hardware problems (i own the router and cable modem from them)

i have an older one. the router with the 4 port switch built in.

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=34&scid=29&prid=561

my is like ver 2 and has activity lights for connected, 10mbps, and 100mbps. i also did recently upgrade the firmware. i had to look for my version specifically. the other thing i was thinking it might be is my router, access point, and mini switch all sit right on top of each other. they get pretty hot too (not like melting hot or anything). that might have an effect on performace but i dont really see how. actaully that was linksys's take on it. today i actually set them apart from each other so heat couldnt have been a factor. my connection issues were actually worse this time though.

hmm, now that i think about it. resetting my modem and router always seems to fix the problem. at least temporarily. the funny thing is ive been at school and couldnt get to my network at all. ill call my brother at a different school and he can get to the sites just fine.

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[sporkit]

Originally posted by bsm2001
The other possibility could be the outside phone lines. If they are old then you aare more than likley getting errors between your modem & the telco. I have been fighting with my ISP & Phone co about our 40+ year old lines outside and they all say that unless the line fall to the ground as long as my phone works then they will not replace the lines. have a look into that posibility also.

hmm, the phones have been acting up lately too. i remember a year or two ago i had problems with my dsl and phone line. if you picked up line1 you could speak to people on line 2. that funny thing was if i called tech support i would be connected to 2 techs at once. if they transfered me it would be like 4 people on the line. :D

[bsm2001]

Yep I just had my service dropped from 6.0/768 to 3.0/384 and it is still a guess if it will hold there. If it doesn't then I forsee a treelimb accident
http://graphicheaven.homestead.com/files/ironmaideonavatar.gif

[thaddaeus]

Although those equipment can be stacked i highly advise not to unless you have adequit cooling ie a fan blowing directly in between them, i did this with my cable modem and the router and i noticed a huge preformance drop and failure on both the router and the modem

[Admstng]

I have a Sonicwall (hardware based firewall) it's great... I host some of my sites at my house and this thing never fails me... send me logs, shows statistics, VPN, proxy (proxy isn't that good though), nice web interface...

-Adam

[jme]

An old machine, three NIC's and www.smoothwall.org

Been serving me good for the past 2 years! :)