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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => Routers / COVR => DIR-855 => Topic started by: thhal on February 02, 2009, 09:55:35 AM

Title: Scheduling and allow versus block
Post by: thhal on February 02, 2009, 09:55:35 AM
I just bought a DIR-855. I have had some previous experience with a DI-624. It had the ability to stack several rules witch could allow or block ranges of IP-addresses and ports. This was very convenient and I miss it very much in the much more expensive DIR-855. Example:

Rule #1 Allow ports 53,80,443, and 1863 during the time between 8am and 8pm
Rule #2 Allow all ports between 8pm and 10pm
Rule #3 Block all ports at all times

The rules are evaluated in order and the first one with a matching schedule is applied.

With the new expensive DIR-855 this gets very complicated. There's no way to allow ports, nor can you prioritize the rules. So I must first create a number of schedules:
Schedule #1 12am - 8am
Schedule #2 8am - 8pm
Schedule #3 8pm - 10pm
Schedule #4 10pm - 11:59pm

And then I must create an "Access Rule" for each of these schedules. Some rules are easy (block everything) but the port rules must describe ranges such as 1-52, 54-79, 81-442, 444-1862, 1864-65535. The problem gets much worse if such an access rule spans over midnight (and thus must be duplicated manually by keying everything in once more). All in all, much more work and much less readable result.

Are there any plans to improve this? IMO, the way it stands now, it really lessens the usability of the product.