Edimax AC-M1000

Edimax may not have the same high profile in the SMB networking arena as
vendors such as Linksys and Netgear, but its latest Access Controllers do set
it apart: these offer extensive access security and management facilities for
both wired and wireless networks.

The range consists of two products, with the entry-level M1000 on review. The
appliance provides eight LAN ports, which can function in either controlled
or uncontrolled modes. Any device attached to the former type of port will be
subject to authentication and have security policies applied to determine what
services it can access and how much bandwidth it can have. The two WAN ports
indicate that failover is also on offer, where the secondary connection will
fire up if the primary fails.

Initial installation is simple, with a wizard that steps through securing
administrative access, setting up the primary WAN port, and providing a
default authentication mode and details of a homepage where authenticated
users can be redirected to. The appliance can manage authentication locally,
but also supports LDAP, NT Domain and RADIUS servers plus POP3.
Your next step is to decide which LAN ports are controlled and what
authentication servers are to be used. Three local or external servers are
supported, while the fourth provides on-demand access where the appliance can
implement billing schemes based on time or traffic volume, making it ideally
suited to wireless hotspots. The M1000 supports up to eight security policies,
which we found easy to create. Each can have up to ten firewall profiles
that determine what interfaces, protocols and port ranges are allowed or
blocked. Default routes and gateways can be applied, as can schedules for
each day that determine when the policy is active. Each policy also has
options for restricting total bandwidth and maximum bandwidth per user.

Wireless access can be managed, although only four Edimax EW-7206APg APs are
supported. For testing, we used a single Edimax AP on a controlled port, which
was discovered by the appliance. From the AP list, you can reboot, enable or
disable selected APs and apply security settings such as SSID masking,
WEP/WPA/WPA2 encryption schemes and MAC access lists using one of three
templates.

We liked the IPsec VPN feature, since Edimax has taken the pain out of client
configuration normally associated with these. You simply enable VPN
termination on the appliance, choose the encryption and integrity schemes you
want, and then apply this on a per-user basis. When a user logs in,
the appliance simply downloads an ActiveX control and sets up the tunnel –
very smart. It’s easy to use and we set this up successfully with a wireless
test client on our first attempt.

Bear in mind that you’ll be tied to Edimax if you want wireless AP management,
and the lack of Gigabit Ethernet could present a bottleneck in larger
networks. Nevertheless, these types of network access controllers are normally
beyond the means of small businesses, and the AC-M1000 delivers a
feature-packed solution well suited to those on a tight budget.

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