Linksys BEFSX41 Crash

[mck...@gmail.com]

My router has been crashing very consistently and I'm wondering if
anyone else has seen this problem? One thing I've seen is that the
http administration stops responding (can long longer connect to
http://192.168.1.1) before the router stops completely (stops
responding to pings on the LAN, and no longer connects to the
internet).

I've tried upgrading to the latest Firmware from the linksys site
(1.52.18 is the current version) - but I'm still having problems.

I do note that I receive a lot of outside requests to ports 1026 and
1027 from domains in China. Looks to me like (very common) MSN
Messenger probes/attacks. But I don't know if these are the cause of
the router failing.

I also see Invalid TCP packets in the Security log that are being
identified to the Google Talk service (which I am using on several of
the machines on my LAN).

Sigh. Anyone want to suggest a more reliable home firewall?

- Mike

[Sebastian Gottschalk]

mck...@gmail.com wrote:
> I do note that I receive a lot of outside requests to ports 1026 and
> 1027 from domains in China. Looks to me like (very common) MSN
> Messenger probes/attacks.

NetDDE Messaging != MSN Messenger

Beside that, today at lot of these requests rather address formerly
vulnerable RPC services like Task Scheduler.

> Sigh. Anyone want to suggest a more reliable home firewall?

Huh? I though you'd be using a router as a router. No need for
firewalling for a home user environment.

Anyway, Linksys products are well known for having excellent alternative
firmwares which are more reliable. As you already upgraded the firmware,
the warranty is gone anyway.

[mck...@gmail.com]

I use the BEFSX41 purely as a firewall. I have a separate router (much
larger) for my home.

[mck...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the advice on the firmware. I was mistaken before, I was in
fact using 1.52.10 (I had previously been using 1.50.18 and I tried to
upgrade to Linksys's latest firmware to see if that would fix my
problem - it did not).

So I reverted to the v1.45.7, Dec 30 2003 version. I could not find
this version on the Linksys website - so I got it from here:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,9086151

There is discussion of the most stable firmware version (from Jan
2003!) here:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,11329487~mode=flat

They also suggest 1.45.7 (or 1.51.0 - with the new UI).

I will also send a note to Linksys tech support to see if they will
address this issue. Version 1.52.10 has some serious problems - most
commonly the http interface would crash and the firewall becomes
unmanagable w/o power cycling to bring it back up.

For reference, the 1.52.10 download page is at:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Download_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1115417109974&packedargs=sku%3D1115416832406&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

- Mike
http://bluedot.us/users/mike?st=tag%3alinksys

gray....@moria.mines wrote:

> On 24 Jul 2006 22:40:26 -0700, mck...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >I use the BEFSX41 purely as a firewall. I have a separate router (much
> >larger) for my home.
>

> The BEFSX41 is a tragic beast. It is a fabulous piece of hardware that
> never had firmware that really did it justice. I am going to suggest
> you try the v1.45.7 firmware revision. All the 1.5.x versions of the
> firmware have definite showstopper bugs in them & 1.45.7 seems to be
> the most trouble-free of all the firmware revisions available.
>
> If you are wanting to upgrade to a better firewall how much are you
> willing to spend? To get a really good one you'll be spending at least
> $3-400 dollars.

[mck...@gmail.com]

I sent this to Linksys:

I have been having my firewall crash frequently. I was using firmware
1.50.18. So I tired the latest version posted to your web site
(1.52.10). Seems WORSE, not better. In particular, the web interface
to manage the router crashes within just a few minutes of
power-cycling. And occasionally I can't even PING the router anymore
and also loose connectivity to the WAN.

I started a thread on comp.security.firewalls:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.security.firewalls/browse_thread/thread/02cce228563c138d/705c929a44d80cf8#705c929a44d80cf8

Where it was suggested that I revert to the 2003 version 1.45.7. I am
trying that now and hope to crash less. But I would like to use the
most recent version of the firmware if you can get the bugs fixed.

[mck...@gmail.com]

Linksys got back to me. They sugget that I change the MTU settings
(Maximum Transmission Unit), starting
at 1500 (for cable modem - 1492 for DSL), and then dropping it by 20
byes at a time down to minimum of 576.
Yikes. Sounds like this would take me a couple of hours of fiddling
with the model settings. How about I just
buy an inexpensive modem that actually JUST WORKS.

They claim that perhaps I have a "hardware problem". Though loading
the old firmware seems to be more stable than
the newest version.

[gr]

gray....@moria.mines wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:59:28 +0200, Sebastian Gottschalk
> <se...@seppig.de> wrote:
>
>> Huh? I though you'd be using a router as a router. No need for
>> firewalling for a home user environment.
>

> As you are not able to see what data is stored on his home LAN & what
> he uses his computers at home for you're jumping to a conclusion not
> armed with all the facts. You may be right in your diagnosis, but you
> may not be.

>
>> Anyway, Linksys products are well known for having excellent alternative
>> firmwares which are more reliable. As you already upgraded the firmware,
>> the warranty is gone anyway.
>

> Some Linksys products are well-known for having excellent alternative
> firmwares, but the BEFSX41 is not one of them.
>
> Upgrading the firmware on a Linksys router with Linksys-branded
> versions is endorsed by the company and does not invalidate the
> warranty.
I had a pair of these, used for vpn remote to an office and had heat
problems with both units. I gave up after a year (and after applying the
latest flashes and switched to a pair of SMC units (no trouble since!)
gr

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

gr wrote:

> I had a pair of these, used for vpn remote to an office and had heat
> problems with both units.

I've also had heat problems with one.

-j

--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read top-posted, over-quoted or HTML posts
My Reply-To address is valid.