Monitoring- DumaOS Part 2

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The final menu in DumaOS for the Nighthawk XR500, Settings, is so extensive that it merits a page of its own to go through. This is more of a collection of sub-menus that have options that are seen in monitoring portals of higher-end routers today, and the XR500 is no exception. The first group of the settings sub-menus is all about setup, wherein you get more controls over the initial setup process that occurred before. It starts off with Internet setup again, ensuring nothing is wrong, and here is where you would have to enter login credentials to access the Internet connection if that was so before. After this, NETGEAR gives you the option to run the setup wizard again if you so desire. The next five pages are self-explanatory in terms of setup for the WAN, LAN, WPS and Wi-Fi networks. Finally, you can select whether to run the XR500 as a router or access point and also rename it if you prefer something other than just "XR500".


The second group is called Monitoring, and it takes the name quite literally by being all about traffic monitoring. Indeed, a very handy traffic meter can be set and customized here to keep track of your activities online. For those of us still with a data cap in 2018, this is quite handy for double checking the number reported by our ISP to make sure no funny business is going on there. The router logs can be seen as well, and more options on the same are provided here, including the ability to send logs to yourself or others (say, NETGEAR tech support for troubleshooting). The statistics and connection status pages do not provide new information that has not been seen before, and this entire group could have just been removed by simply having a traffic monitor R-app (or whatever else they want it to be) and enabling the log options in the system information menu itself.


The third group in the settings menu is Content Filtering, and this is one of the more useful option sets in this menu. To start off, there are different pages to block websites and services, which enables more detailed options to add and customize accordingly. For website-blocking, one can block by keywords, edit the keyword list, and also whitelist sites based on IP address to prevent false positives. Service-blocking gives you the ability to add a user-defined service or any other from a drop-down menu under TCP, UDP, or TCP/UDP protocols. There is also a schedule-based traffic blocking page for those who want it, and this involves selecting the time/times of day and day/days of the week to block off access. Finally, and making big brother proud, is the ability to have the router email logs and alerts pertaining to the content filtering section and anyone trying to get around it.


The Administration group contains the page on security credentials, including the set password to access DumaOS options and the ability to set security questions/answers as a check for when the password is forgotten. You can check for a new firmware update, if available, and update the router accordingly. By default, the router is set to automatically update firmware, which I suggest leaving as-is unless you are diligent about following up, checking for updates, and then checking further to see if others have reported any issues or bugs after the update. You can also back up and restore settings customized here, in case you have to do a factory reset for some reason, and also do a reboot of the router without needing to power cycle it.


The penultimate group here is USB Storage, and this can go a long way towards enabling an inexpensive media server, albeit with not as much functionality as a dedicated NAS with something like Plex installed. For some reason, there is support for iTunes as far as music of said media server goes, but none of the other popular options, such as Spotify or Google Music. We also have NETGEAR's ReadySHARE support that is even simpler to use and enables a USB storage device to function as a network storage device—simply have a network folder on the USB device and enable connections via access methods of your choosing. NETGEAR recommends having login credentials here, and I concur as one can never be too safe when dealing with network storage. If you install NETGEAR Genie on your desktop, as we covered with the Orbi before, you can also back up files on your PC to the network-attached storage device. I have not personally tried this since I will be rotating between network devices for review and will not always have access to a NETGEAR router for their specific feature enabling this service.


The final group, and the final set of options in DumaOS as of the date of this review, is called Advanced Settings and basically lists everything else not covered before. This includes more wireless settings for the 2.4 and 5 GHz networks as well as WPS, port forwarding and triggering, enabling a dynamic DNS service if you have one or even purchasing one via provided options, and VPN configuration via OpenVPN, which I personally think should have been in a section of its own. Regardless, you can set up a VPN for Windows, macOS, and/or a smart phone individually, and this worked as well as OpenVPN would. If you have a VPN client, there is a page to configure that as well, as seen above. Rounding out the settings is remote router management and more LED control, including blinking during traffic.

DumaOS may be taking liberties in their naming of things as apps and it being an OS, but there is no denying that it is an extremely powerful monitoring utility that helps justify the XR500 router as a debut product in NETGEAR's new Nighthawk Pro Gaming lineup.