[120774] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Consumer-grade dual-homed connectivity options?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel Senie)
Mon Jan 4 12:12:17 2010
From: Daniel Senie <dts@senie.com>
In-Reply-To: <1262614205.5448.17.camel@X61.NetworkingUnlimited.nul>
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 12:11:37 -0500
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
The SonicWALL firewall appliances have had decent multi-port NAT =
functionality for a long time. In the most recent software revision for =
the latest generation of appliances, they've extended this beyond 2 =
upstreams. The smaller units in the line also can use various 3G =
wireless cards and USB dongles to either load balance or do failover.
Models range from SOHO-sized to large enterprise. I've used them myself =
for years, and installed them for clients. They are reliable and =
straightforward to configure. And yes, for full disclosure, I've been =
certified on their gear for a long time, and do resell it (also resell =
several other brands of networking gear).
Dan
On Jan 4, 2010, at 9:10 AM, Vincent C Jones wrote:
> Most of the SOHO router vendors (Netgear, Linksys, etc) have a model
> targeted at this application. When this class of "dual homed" router
> first came out several years ago, they were notoriously unreliable, =
but
> I would hope they work better by now. A search on the term "ping based
> routing" should give you insight into the current state of affairs,
> although it will probably take some work because there is no standard
> terminology to describe the facility, and most implementations no =
longer
> rely on "ping" to do the job of detecting link status.
>=20
> A few limitations to keep in mind:
>=20
> 1 - These routers are targeted at home users, are cheap, and you don't
> get what you don't pay for.=20
>=20
> 2 - The job can be done using "real" routers (Cisco, Juniper, etc), =
but
> setup requires work and getting a solution that actually works can be
> tricky.=20
>=20
> 3 - Be wary of any advice that you get from anyone who has not =
actually
> done it on the box in question! There are many ways a solution which
> should work will fail miserably. For example, when I looked at this
> problem a few years ago for a client, the SOHO routers tended to lock =
up
> and require a power cycle every few days while Cisco IOS routers would
> not clear the NAT table when a link failed soft and tended to stop
> testing a link once it failed, requiring manual recovery.
>=20
> Good luck and have fun!
> --
> Vincent C Jones
> Networking Unlimited, Inc.
> www.networkingunlimited.com
>=20
>=20
> On Sat, 2010-01-02 at 18:14 -0500, Steven King wrote:
>> You would need at least one router for this.
>>=20
>> Personally I would connect both DSL modems into a small Cisco router =
or
>> multi-layer switch. Use that router as the default gateways for each =
LAN
>> and have two static routes as the default gateway on the router to
>> specify each DSL line. This would allow for load balancing each =
connection.
>>=20
>> Although, you run into the issue of needing PAT on both lines. This
>> wouldn't be complex, but would need to be handled by the router as =
well.
>>=20
>> I am not sure about asymmetric paths though. Depending on the device, =
it
>> may handle this differently, and there is no guarantee that the =
source
>> of your traffic will be from the same connection all the time to the
>> destination. This would cause connectivity issues. There really is no
>> elegant solution to that without having a full routing table of the
>> Internet and 2 separate providers. Others on this list may have a
>> solution to that issue off the top of their heads, or have done this
>> themselves.
>>=20
>>=20
>> On 1/2/10 5:48 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
>>>=20
>>> --- paul.w.bennett@gmail.com wrote:
>>> From: "Paul Bennett" <paul.w.bennett@gmail.com>
>>>=20
>>> At home, I currently run two DSL lines. Right now, we just have two =20=
>>> separate LANs, one connected to each line, with my wife's devices =
attached =20
>>> to one, and my devices attached to the other. For a while now, I've =
been =20
>>> thinking about setting up a load-balancing routing solution to give =
both =20
>>> of us access to both lines.
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> Maybe www.xincom.com/products.php will work?
>>>=20
>>> scott
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>=20
