I purchased a Cisco 871 wireless SOHO router 2 months ago. In short, you need to be a CCIE to configure or troubleshoot it. First line support has no clue. No books, references exist. Ad's say it does VPN PassThru, Mac Filtering etc. Try finding out how to do it!!!!!!!!!! Good luck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why they put that useless "manual" in the box puzzles me. Maybe so they can show how many languages it can be useless in. I had to get on with Cisco to get the thing to accept DNS server IP info from the DSL provider. At first he said Cisco 871 didn't do that, I explained that Linksys, Dlink, USR etc all did it. He was adamant that it didn't and told me I should have researched the product (short version). He called me back 2 days later saying he found out how to accept the DNS server ip's. The SDM is only useful to do the Firewall. At least that worked, but when I was trying to modify the access list so I could troubleshoot a website hang issue (which turned out to be an MTU issue)- I totally hosed the FW and had to go back to the SDM which created all new acl's. I bought Cisco wireless handbook and fundamentals books, both had screenshots from the Aironet GUI - very little CLI in the fundamentals (2 inch thick) and almost nothing in handbook for CLI. Finally got wireless up and running thanks to a forum and things I pieced together. I found out that the Cisco guy blew away the BVI interface and put everything on VLAN1. I do systems admin for a living. I have found much, much more info from Microsoft, Redhat and Mandiva than I have from Cisco, I have CCO access and Smartnet. There are several CCIE's and MANY CCNP's where I work and they just rolled their eyes when I told them it was an ISR. I have 2 Cisco switches, 2 Cisco router (not including the 871); the 871 makes the
2524,2503,2950,1924 look like a piece of cake. In my spare time; hehehe , I am trying to do a CCNA. So I am not completely illiterate. I'm trying to learn and understand, but when there is NO information available or that information has completely different terminology than the subject you are researching - the cause is almost hopeless. I don't want to keep running to the CCIE's and CCNP's at work.I am having problems that I CANNOT figure out. I'd actually have to know what is going on to turn the correct DEBUG on. I have finally given up and will buy a Linksys WG54GL just to get my wife's VPN client to stop timing out. I can connect to a Linksys I borrowed and it works really well. Put my NW back on the 871 and the problems come back.
I don't doubt that the 871 is a powerful and quality product, it is the support and resource issue that I am struggling with. I paid $600.00 + the Smartnet for a router that has more flakes than a box of cereal. This is not for SOHO - because as a small business you can't really afford $200+ an hour for someone else to set this up.
I WILL eventually figure the 871 out - maybe not before the next visit by Halley's Comet, but I figure by the time I get done mastering this "device" I could go for a CCIE (sarcastic joke). I now have MUCH more respect for what a CCIE has to go through to get the cert).
For those who read all the way through this whine / rant - thanks !!! Any pointers to books, web sites courses will be GREATLY appreciated.