<snip>
> 4000's I feel are one of the best deals out there. You can buy a chassis
> for like $400 or so, and then a 2 port serial card is about $110, you can
> buy what you need when you need it.
>
> FastEthernet can be "expensive" to get. The 4000 has a FastEthernet
> interface, as does the 3620.
The 4000 chassis doesn't support the FE interface, only the 4500 or 4700
processor can't handle it from what my take on it is anyway.
Never tried plugging one in just to see though. Only reason I can think of
you would need an FE for a lab, would be to do ISL or 802.1q trunking to a
switch though.
> A 3620 can make an interesting router. You can put a 1fe2w giving you
> fast ethernet and 2 WAN slots (isdn/serial), and you can put a 1e1tr2w in
> another slot giving you ethernet/token ring/and 2 more wan slots.
>
> just work it all behind your budget.
>
>>
>> and last but not least:
>>
>> 2.) Our home network is sited behind a firewall, would this be a
>> hindrance for the router or can I still perform all routing as usual.
>> Or Would a better option be getting a second IP number and putting my
>> network on a different subnet than my roommates?
>> Plus we are on a cable modem connection with dynamic IP, although it
>> doesn't change frequently..
>
> your lab doesn't need to be connected to a WAN at all...........you can
> build your own private network, which is probably best anyways.
-->I agree with this statement. Use RFC 1918 addresses also. I had someone
that had a lab at home and they had a cable"modem", which is actually a
bridge, that raised havoc with the cable head-end routers when they started
messing around with OSPF and BGP route redist and using their own IP address
at the house.
Only time I hooked my lab up to my leased line was to mess with NAT/PAT
stuff, then it came right back off. If I crash my test network, it's not as
big of a deal then if the production network gets hosed.
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