Load balancing WAN connections

[Lord1e]

Hi guys,

I've spent a significant amount of time researching the best way to implement a new WAN connection into our office network.

We currently use smoothwall (www.smoothwall.org) as our network firewall. It turns any old box into firewall and VPN gateway.

Unfortunatly it cannot handle multiple WAN interfaces, so we've had to deploy another smoothwall box to cover the new SDSL connection.

I'd like to know if there was any way to define what traffic goes out though what gateway. Being rather simplistic about the whole thing, could FTP go out over the SDSL and HTTP go out over the ADSL.

I understand there are dual wan routers recently available, but they are all around £250 because of the firewall and other fancy routing features they have on them. The thing is the firewall is handled, as is the QOS, as is the web monitoring and content filtering all by the smoothwall.

I understand you can use Win 2003 RRAS as a basic network router, has anyone had any experience with it in this kinda concept.

Is there software that can handle this that i have obviously overlooked?

I'm really struggling to find a definitive solution on this one, and i really would like to avoid the exspensive new router option. Not least because we'd end up with a triple NAT scenario..

ADSL ROUTER > DUAL WAN ROUTER > SMOOTHWALL > LAN
^^^^^^
SDSL ROUTER

Any suggestions of any kind would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Lordie

[RFH Reseller: Sol]

I think you should take a look at:

Zebra (http://www.zebra.org)
Quagga (http://www.quagga.net/)
XORP (http://www.xorp.org)

I've personally used Zebra and Quagga (and infact built a Zebra router from scratch to installed in under 2 hours including assembling the PC).

[RFH Customer: cswd]

I was in the same situation. My solution was:

1. Kill the ADSL line completely (ours was a wireless DSL one which was shite).
2. Get an IDSN backup wired to the Cisco SDSL endpoint router.
3. Buy a Cisco PIX 515E and use that as a router (lease it if you have to).
4. Use Cisco QoS to prioritise FTP over HTTP etc.

If the SDSL drops, the ISDN takes over instantly and transparently with the same IP address.

Don't put windows anywhere near the internet if you can help it. It's too volatile. One service pack with security policy changes is enough to take you off the internet (2k3 SP1 in particular).

I know this costs cash, but you can't cheap it - believe me I've tried.

[Lord1e]

Thanks for the help guys,

Unfortunatly i can't drop the ADSL line as it's 2mb and the SDSL is only 1mb because of the distance from our local exchange.

We run a commercial website, and have a team of 10 or so people working on it proccessing orders all the time. So ideally, having the 2mb for there browsing is ideal.

The developemt team need to download and upload databases all the time, so SDSL suits them.

We E-mail bill, so the exchange server needs to go on the SDSL.

Thanks for the links Sol, i've downloaded the documentation which i plan to read at some point in the near future. I'm far from a linux expert though, and fear it's going to be a little over my head.

I've posted this question on 3 forums and had little in the way of respone, looks like it's not a normal practise. Shame

Much obliged for your help guys,

Lordie

[RFH Customer: cswd]

Don't know if this helps. Couldn't you divide your internal network into 2 with the order processing machines and exchange with the SDSL gateway and the ADSL gateway for the developers etc.

I've had 25 developers, Exchange and our development servers on a 1Mbit SDSL with no problems (again due to line quality problems in Nottingham city centre of all places depsite being 250m from the ****ing exchange!).

I'd REALLY recommend an OpenBSD/pf based router/firewall solution if you want advanced queueing and routing.

I'll build you one which I'll manage remotely if you want for a price!

[RFH Reseller: Sol]

Here are some products that you could look at (the Netgear one at the end is only £115).

http://www.firebrick.co.uk/fb105.html

http://www.neteyes.biz/?Cmd=Product_...&Cmd2=nexusway

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=2274