Broadband Tech > Networking > Dual WAN routers, take 5...

reply to Sunfox

Re: Dual WAN routers, take 5...

I'm fine with a great deal of geeky stuff, but networking is not one of those. I know a bit more than the basics, but when it comes to setting up a reliable home network I prefer some time and thought have been put into an intuitive GUI.

At any rate, the 2.0 docs certainly look a bit easier then 1.2, but once again I'm only seeing weighted round robin load balancing discussed.

reply to Sunfox
It's true that much of the documentation for 2.0 is incomplete, I think mostly due to the fact that 2.0 was only made final recently and there is apparently no designated documenter on the dev team. cmb has indicated that a book for 2.0 is in the works, but I'm not aware of any ETA.

Rest assured that development is alive and well, as are the forum and mailing list. The product is both powerful and reliable. Most of the best documentation for 2.0 right now resides in the wiki (inexplicably split between a "FAQ" page and a "How-To" page). For example, the dual-WAN howto is found here: »doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-WAN_2.0
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db

reply to Sunfox
Very good explanation on how to exploit policy based routing on multiple wan interfaces pfSense 2

reply to Sunfox

On the 890, why in the world would they create an 802.11n dual-radio WiFi router with one gigabit WAN port... and only a 100mbit switch?

I remember looking at Peplink. These guys actually have UPnP, a rarity. They have the same pay-for-support system as SonicWall, but the base price is better so it doesn't seem as bad. Have to take a longer look at them.

reply to Sunfox
x8xx series routers only had 10/100 switch module capabilities, and then again
it's easy enough to buy a cheap GigE switch to connect to the GigE int on the 89x.

Regards

True enough, but I was thinking more along the lines that if you build a product with a gigabit WAN port and non-throwaway 802.11n WiFi, then you really need at least one gigabit port to hook up to the rest of your network to avoid a serious bottleneck.

The mighty CISCO occasionally has conflicts between the engineering group and the marketing group -- so this series was a dumb anomaly. This series never achieved sales milestones plus their overall margins are able to absorb the dumb stuff. The engineering group place this unit in the spotlight just to rub the nose of the marketing types -- usually it calms the aggressive nature of how stuff gets done.

Also people in fortune 500 companies who are tasked with making buying decisions and who rely heavily on their IT consultants tend to be easily influenced by the sales magicians so stuff like the 8xx gets into the branches who have no clue whatsoever whats behind their poor performance -- what they do know however is that the central management office can easily manage the infrastructure -- and easily to maange is the prime directive.

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David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business

reply to Sunfox
"Ideally I could route traffic to the second WAN after the first reaches a certain volume."

I understand you (he) mean(s) volume in GBs? Anybody has any suggestion how to achieve that with load balancing?

Ideally I'd like to achieve that both interfaces would pull through even number of GBs load of traffic, not necessarily switching to the other WAN upon reaching certain number of GBs of accumulated traffic.

I am not talking about when line congestion - overload - sends traffic to the other WAN interface (load balancing or offloading) but about two WAN connection on which you are limited monthly to 60GB of data. Is there a way to split the traffic evenly between the two interfaces so that the number of GBs is spread more or less even between them?

I have DrayTek Vigor 2110V and it does have UPnP, also Failover and Load balancing. Not sure if what I want above could be achieved with these consumer level dual wan routers.

BTW DrayTek has no support, firmware is not being developped (it might be different with their higher end and newer models though. And VOIP on this model has some serious shortcoming (it never reconnects to SIP server once it de-registers once for whatever reason, you need to reboot the router...)

That link to 'DD WRT Dual WAN' is interesting, will check if its load balancing has some comprehensive presets for home use, like policy setup to achieve the above goal splitting the volume of traffic evenly over subscription period.

Actually, I meant throughput.

But I actually like your idea - I'd love to have a option where I could say "after I've reached xxxGB of traffic for a defined period on a particular WAN interface, stop using this connection further unless it's the only one available".

That would work well for instances where there's a fast but limited or expensive primary connection, and a slow but unlimited or cheap secondary connection.

In the end, I'm going to go for a new Zyxel. I can live without UPnP (rarely used) more than I can live without the other features.

These terms can be very confusing, that's why I try 'talk around' them in descriptive terms.

I may have just found the answer to my problem

 http://www.desksoft.com/BWMeter.htm
 

That software can only monitor the bandwidth of a single PC. It will never see any of the traffic from other PC's on your network unless you have all your systems connected to a hub or to a managed switch that allows you to monitor all packets going through the switch.

If you have a router that is supported by Tomato firmware, you could send all internet traffic through it and monitor the bandwidth from the router. Here's a screen shot of it in action: »www.polarcloud.com/img/ssbwm100.png

reply to Sunfox
I just installed a Cisco RV042 dual wan, configured for failover. Works great - when it senses a failure on WAN1, it get a dhcp address and connects via WAN2. Very simple to configure.
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NOTHING justifies terrorism. We don't negotiate with terrorists. Those that support terrorists are terrorists.

You don't actually charge people to set that up do you?? It takes what all of 30 secs.......

A guy brings his car in to the mechanic because it is making a noise. Mechanic opens the hood and listens for a while, and tells the guy he can fix it for $100. The guy says ok, at which point the mechanic pulls out a hammer and gives one quick tap. The engine is fixed.

The guy says you want $100 for one tap with your hammer? The mechanic says no, the tap is free. It is $100 for knowing where to tap.

There was no charge for the 30 seconds to setup the router...
--
NOTHING justifies terrorism. We don't negotiate with terrorists. Those that support terrorists are terrorists.

reply to HarryH3
"That software can only monitor the bandwidth of a single PC"

You're right, I just read this section of help file:

quote:

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All traffic on the network: The selected interface will monitor all packets on the network. This mode is called "promiscuous". Most network interfaces support this mode in which they will see all traffic on the network, no matter if the data packets are addressed to this interface or not. You must choose this mode if you want to see and measure traffic of other computers in the network too, and not only of your computer. If the selected interface doesn't support this mode, BWMeter will automatically change the mode back to "Only local traffic" when the program is restarted. Important: monitoring other computer's network activities will not work if the other computers are not connected via hubs, but via switches or routers, because these components filter network traffic before it reaches the network interfaces of the PCs!

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reply to Sunfox

"...probably exists, but as seen before, "how much are you willing to pay for it?""

It is mainly a failure of the programmers of the router devices to think creatively, to respond to SOHO market needs.
The home market doesn't need failover protection and load balancing is not a big pain if you don't have it. Few saturate their lines these days. Its not high but steady unrelenting traffic coupled with provider internet volume capping that begs for some new features on routers.

When I look for double WAN router, I take boxes on the shop shelves into my hands and all I see on each is the description of the same tired old features. If one of them said something more than failover and load balancing, I'd look at the price and would seriously consider paying more, within reason.

Otherwise I think the commercial grade routers can likely be made to do what we talk about here, but the price is way too high as well as the learning curve. It is hard to say which is the bigger deterrent really.

Probably why he went with th zyxel. On the older zywalls and newer USGs they have something like that. See spillover below.

Select a load balancing method to use from the drop-down list box.

Select Weighted Round Robin to balance the traffic load between interfaces based on their respective weights. Weighted round robin is activated only when the first group member interface has more traffic than it can handle.
Select Least Load First to send new session traffic through the least utilized trunk member.
Select Spillover to send network traffic through the first interface in the group member list until there is enough traffic that the second interface needs to be used (and so on).

Load Balance Index: This field is available if you selected to use the Least Load First or Spillover method.
Select Outbound, Inbound, or Outbound + Inbound to set the traffic to which the ZyWALL applies the load balancing method. Outbound means the traffic traveling from an internal interface (ex. LAN) to an external interface (ex. WAN). Inbound means the opposite.

SPILLOVER: This field displays with the spillover load balancing algorithm. Specify the maximum bandwidth of traffic in kilobits per second (1~1048576) to send out through the interface before using another interface. When this spillover bandwidth limit is exceeded, the ZyWALL sends new session traffic through the next interface. The traffic of existing sessions still goes through the interface on which they started.

The ZyWALL uses the group member interfaces in the order that they are listed.

Spillover

The spillover load balancing algorithm sends network traffic to the first interface in the trunk member list until the interface's maximum allowable load is reached, then sends the excess network traffic of new sessions to the next interface in the trunk member list. This continues as long as there are more member interfaces and traffic to be sent through them.

Suppose the first trunk member interface uses an unlimited access Internet connection and the second is billed by usage. Spillover load balancing only uses the second interface when the traffic load exceeds the threshold on the first interface. This fully utilizes the bandwidth of the first interface to reduce Internet usage fees and avoid overloading the interface.

--
Ain't nuthin but the blues! "Albert Collins".
Leave your troubles at the door! "Pepe Peregil" De Sevilla. Just Don't Wifi without WPA, "Yul Brenner"

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