internet connection pooling

[ranasrule]

i have two internet connections....one DSL and one Cable....is there any way to set them up in a pool so that even if one connection is down the users can still use the other one ? i dont want to have to manually change the connection to the WAN port of my router...i hope iam making myself clear....if any more clarification ir required please ask.....thnaks

[Xahid]

you need to setup routing protocol so if the primary link down, it will UP the backup link !

[ranasrule]

there is no windows based automated solution for this ? or a hardware based solution?

[XerXis]

If you have two routers:

router 1 connected to internet 1 via WAN port

router 2 connected to internet 2 via WAN port

router 1 connected to router 2 via normal LAN port

Make sure only router 2 has DHCP on and assign router 1 a static IP address within range of router 2, set the secondary DNS server on router 2 manually to the IP address of router 1. Or give your computers static IP addresses with DNS server 1 and 2 to both of your routers.

[DomZ]

I'm not sure how having dns to 2 different routers would make the internet go through them? You'd need to change the gateway on clients.

I'm not sure of an easy way of doing what your want, I have some ideas of how to do it with linux.

You could use Heartbeat (http://www.linux-ha.org/HomePage) although their documentation isn't great, and may not be worth the hassle if you dont have much linux experience

What I'd do is, have 2 routers as said above, a switch, and a linux box. Set the linux box as the dhcp server, which would also act as teh gateway. Then I'd have a python/bash script called by crontab every 5 mins that trys to ping bbc.co.uk or something, and if there isn't a response the linux box would change it's default gateway to router2 (or vice versa).

#pseudo code

ping bbc.co.uk

if "no response":
	if gateway = 192.168.1.1
	route add default gw 192.168.1.2
else:
	route add default gw 192.168.1.1

[+BudMan MVC]

Well a simple hardware solution would be to use say pfsense as your gateway - which has load balancing or failover support for multiple internet connections.. Or sure there are off the shelf routers that support multiple wan connections.

pfsense on some older pc hardware would get my vote. http://www.pfsense.com/

As mentioned the problem is not in creating the local network that has 2 gateways off of it, ie putting the 2 routers on the same local network. The problem is getting the clients to know which gateway to use. By default if using dhcp -- everyone would point to the router running dhcp.

If you setup a secondary gateway on the clients to point to the other router, it will use the gateway based upon the metric. Yes its possible that if the one with the better metric fails it will start using the gateway with the next best metric, etc. But what will trigger the switch over is complicated, and rarely works as planned, etc. Unless the router itself goes offline.

At best there will most likely be a delay in switching, at worst the clients would never switch. So as mentioned by domz you would want to run something that switches the gateway on the clients. Or use a go between gateway that determines which internet to use.

Which is why something like pfsense would be a good cheap solution. Or something like the linksys rv082 also supports multiple wan

http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solutions/s...ance/index.html

# Ensures your Internet service never goes down. Dual Internet ports on the Linksys RV082 keep your business connected to two Internet sources. If one Internet source goes down, your workers can use the second as a backup. Alternatively, you can connect the two Linksys RV082 Internet ports to the same Internet service, to help balance traffic loads and reduce bottlenecks.

[-Vivicidal-]

A friend told me you just bridge the two connection in network manager... I guess that's wrong then.

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah to put it in simple terms - your friends an IDIOT!!

Unless you were wanting to say bridge a wireless network to a wired one - then sure you could bridge the interfaces.

I would suggest you have your friend read up on what bridging does.

But yeah you run into that FUD all the time about bridging the interfaces to speed them up, or use 2 internet connections at the same time :rolleyes:

[aj_walters]

  BudMan said:

Yeah to put it in simple terms - your friends an IDIOT!!

Unless you were wanting to say bridge a wireless network to a wired one - then sure you could bridge the interfaces.

I would suggest you have your friend read up on what bridging does.

But yeah you run into that FUD all the time about bridging the interfaces to speed them up, or use 2 internet connections at the same time :rolleyes:

You could look at the Draytek 2820 series of routers, they specify that you can load balance or fail over between the WAN connections

http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2820.html

  Quote

Dual-WAN Load Balancing & Backup

As well as the primary ADSL interface, the Vigor 2820 features a secondary WAN port for Internet access. This is an Ethernet interface and can connect to a second ADSL modem, cable modem or any other Ethernet-based Internet feed. The secondary interface can be used either for WAN-Backup or load balancing.

WAN-Backup provides contingenry (redunancy) in case of your primary ADSL line or ISP suffering temporary outage). Internet Traffic will be temporarily routed via the secondary Internet access. When normal services is restored to your primary ADSL line, all traffic is switch back to that.

If you don't have ADSL, the Ethernet WAN port can instead be used as your primary/only Internet connection (using NAT) so the same router can be used for either ADSL or Ethernet Internet connections.

The USB port provides an alternative connection method (Firmware Upgradable) for Internet backup by connecting to a compatible USB modem (or cellphone) for access to the high speed 3G cellular networks from UK providers such as Vodafone, Orange, 3 and T-Mobile. If you don't have ADSL at all, the USB/3G access method can be used as your primary/only Internet connection, ideal for temporary locations, mobile applications or where broadband access is not available.

Note : For WAN2 you can use either a Ethernet or USB 3G connection but not both at the same time.

[Tikimotel]

network perimeter redundancy with pfsense, chris buechler:

This is a presentation from DCBSDCon, it shows some of the basics of network redundancy.

(really starts around 12-13minutes into the presentation if you want to skip the introductions)

pfSense can be used, all it takes is a older PC with multiple NICs. (can be cheaper than the Draytek solution)

I only have 1 connection so I have no experience on how to set it up...pfSense forums can be a great help.

I hope it helps you on your way to a solution.

[aj_walters]

That sounds like a good way to do it.

I was coming at it from the SME side, the dratek solution has the benefit that it will fit an a comms cabinet ;)

But if its for a home solution then the PC based idea could be worth a look.