A small office home office (SOHO) benefits from an all in one device that can have multiple functions. For example an all in one device can act as a modem, router, switch, wireless AP, firewall, and more in just a single physical device.
Routing capability will allow routing to the outside Internet, usually with a DSL or cable modem connection. This allows you route between your internal private network and the outside external Internet network.
SOHO routers usually have a switch built into them. For example, there may be multiple port interfaces to connect to one VLAN.
There’s not too much configuration to be done for a SOHO routers/switch. You simply need to plug in the connection, power the device on, and you’ll have connectivity to the Internet
Performs automatic network translation between your LAN ports and your WAN ports.
If you want to make configuration changes to your router, you’ll need to have the IP address of the router which should be provided by your ISP. Most of the time, it will be http://192.168.2.1 or http://192.168.1.1.
Admin Password
The first thing you’ll want to do is change the default administrator password to prevent other users from creating unwanted changes and to help make it a little harder for hackers to get into the system.
DHCP Settings
Many of the configuration changes covered on the CompTIA A+ exams will be under the “Advanced Settings” on the router configuration panel. For example, if you want to set up DHCP on the router, you’ll need to input the information in the router Advanced settings. You’ll need to specify the range of IPs to distribute. You may also be able to specify the length of time to lease the IP address (how long an IP address is reserved for a certain system).
DNS Settings
Most likely the ISP will configure the router to obtain DNS information automatically. However, there are also public DNS services that you can use such as Google’s public DNS at IP 8.8.8.8.