Linksys Fixes 2Wire Shortcomings

Did I tell you how much I hate the 2Wire router/gateway you have to use for fiber Internet connections? You can’t get into the admin (which is web based) remotely, you can’t use DDNS so when your IP address changes weekly, you have no idea what it changed to, the firewall assumes you are an idiot and can’t do basic stuff with it, etc…

So the IP address changed over the weekend, and the only way to get the new IP is to drive out there and look to see what it is. On the way out there, I had an idea… why not buy a Linksys WRT54G broadband router and just route all in-bound traffic to it. Then you can use it’s firewall and DDNS functions. So that’s what I did… and it works *so* much better… remote admin access and everything else. I even tried to get tricky and route traffic to the Linksys and then right back to the 2Wire to see if I could get to it’s web admin remotely, but no such luck… It ends up redirecting it to a different URL (I’m assuming based on the client not being on the local network)… whatever that part isn’t that important anyway now.

6 thoughts on “Linksys Fixes 2Wire Shortcomings”

  1. That is one of the first times I have ever heard anyone say anything possitive about linksys.
    On a side note..I cannot sign into my myspace account. *cries* I had something I wanted to show you but cannot unless logged on *cries harder* Hold me I am afraid! (ok email me instead:-)

  2. There’s a way to access the 2Wire with the Linksys Router. You just have to have a computer on site and use a remote desktop program like Windows Remote Desktop or VNC if you’re using Linux. I’m sure Mac has a remote desktop program too. Once your on the remote computer’s desktop, you can login to the 2Wire like you’re standing right next to it.

  3. I have a 2wire now as a gateway router and was extremely annoyed when I got it as to how limited it was and how I could not do any basic functions. Of course I was not aware of the MDC mode that allows you to do more in-depth routing tables and such, and once I figured that out it helped a lot. Of course still no DDNS.

    I have considered for a while doing what you do as well. Right now I actually have a linksys wirelessly hooked up to my 2 wire basically as a port extender. I have considered just putting the two-wire in bridge mode so it just bypasses the two-wire routing altogether.

    All that said, the 2wire and linksys are both 10 times better than the piece of trash netgear I used before that would overheat and require constant reboots. I actually like the 2wire as a hardware device, but the software really sucks.

  4. I just stumbled upon this as I am having trouble with 2wire gateway but with remote desktop even though the ports are open.

    Anyway, I used DDNS and didn’t like it (originally with a dirt cheap firewall/router and it seemed to place a lot of extra load on it and cause it to crash!)…..

    So my dynamic IP address, I just get from a website. If you have access to a webhost or such, just create a php page that will store the pc’s ip address, and from your other pc just access the web url where it is to get the IP.

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