IPNetRouterX 1.2.3 review
DownloadIPNetRouterX is a powerful router, firewall, and network management utility including NAPT with inbound port mapping, a built-in DHCP Server, AirPort configuration tool, bandwidth accounting, and rate limiting.
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IPNetRouterX is a powerful router, firewall, and network management utility including NAPT with inbound port mapping, a built-in DHCP Server, AirPort configuration tool, bandwidth accounting, and rate limiting.
Using IPNetRouterX you can share a network connection among multiple users, provide DHCP service, configure an AirPort software base station, allocate network bandwidth to match business priorities, audit network usage, and secure your LAN against undesirable traffic or network abuse.
IPNetRouterX includes the complete IP filtering engine from IPNetSentryX, extending its flexibility to the entire LAN.
Compared to UNIX natd and ipfw, the standard Internet sharing and firewall included with Mac OS X, IPNetRouterX offers several advantages:
Excellent performance using in kernel single address space AVL search trees.
Excellent compatibility. As a shared resource, UNIX ipfw is often configured by multiple programs with conflicting models. IPNetRouterX does not use or depend on ipfw leaving it available for other UNIX software. IPNetRouterX's second generation NAT design includes many refinements not always available in other implementations.
Flexible configuration, logging, and notification options.
IPNetRouterX supplements and is fully compatible with Apple's own firewall in OSX while providing additional capability to solve network problems users may encounter.
More Inside Scoop
How is IPNetRouterX different from Apple's built-in Internet sharing which uses UNIX natd, ipfw and IP forwarding?
IPNetRouterX works with the built-in network stack and uses IP forwarding as well, so the primary implementation difference is that IPNetRouterX provides its own NKE (Network Kernel Extension) to provide NAT and IP filtering instead of relying on UNIX natd and ipfw. By providing its own implementation, IPNetRouterX can be faster and more flexible. I'll elaborate a little on each of these below.
How can IPNetRouterX be faster?
UNIX natd is actually a client process which uses an ipfw divert socket to get packets out of the network kernel, translate them, and then re-inject them back into the kernel. This means it must shuffle every packet between different address spaces and wait for the corresponding process to be scheduled. In contrast, IPNetRouterX uses a Network Kernel Extension to perform translation within the network stack itself thus avoiding a huge amount of overhead. If you have a reason to care about network throughput such as serving a large number of users or doing remote backups, this can be significant.
How can IPNetRouterX be more flexible?
As a shared resource, UNIX ipfw is often configured by multiple programs with conflicting models. IPNetRouterX does not use or depend on ipfw leaving it available for other UNIX software. Users are sometimes surprised to discover they can't use a firewall and AirPort software base station at the same time, or that the software base station doesn't remain configured after restarting, or they can't choose address ranges for DHCP or specific LAN segments. IPNetRouterX doesn't have these limitations.
IPNetRouterX includes Traffic Discovery to let you see how your network is being used.
IPNetRouterX includes Bandwidth Allocation to improve network utilization.
IPNetRouterX includes Ethernet Bridging for setting up transparent firewalls.
IPNetRouterX is being actively developed and maintained for Macintosh users and is intended to solve problems other low cost solutions don't address. UNIX natd and ipfw were developed long before the Macintosh graphical User Interface came to the Internet. While Apple has done a good job of creating a simple GUI for configuring Internet sharing, it is designed for the most common 80% case of surfing the web from multiple hosts behind a single public IP address. If your needs are more complicated, Apple expects you to configure it yourself or use a 3rd party solution. IPNetRouterX provides one such alternative.
What's New:
Fix bug in configuring named for the first time.
Update named is running status every 10 seconds while DNS Server window is open.
Update named when System Configuration changes.
Allow Local NAT to non-directly attached IP subnets.
Filters: allow matching "internal" or "external" interface.
Filters: separate parameter from stats.
Filters: update value combo box when cell is about to be displayed.
Interfaces: add automatic failover button.
DHCP Server: add Save button that completes any editing in progress before saving.
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