Load balancer TP-R470T+ and two ADSL modems configuration?

[roberto71]

Hi all,
I hope you can help me in configuring and/or understanding the aspects of my network. I have a small understanding of networking, so please don’t be too hard on me.

I have two internet connections on two basic ADSL modem routers:
- 1. Thomson TG784
- 2. TP link TD-8840T

LAN side, they are both connected to a switch which brings the connection to the plugs of the office (some plugs are on one network, some are on the other).

Both modems are connected via PPPoA and they both get a static IP, as agreed with my ISP.

I bought a load balancer, a TP Link R-470T+, and I cannot manage to configure it. I asked tp link support and I managed to set up this current configuration (which does not work and their help desk is not up to my expectations, this is why I’m asking here – you guys know better!):

Modem1 on WAN 1
Modem2 on WAN 2
Switch1 on LAN1
Switch2 on LAN2

So far so good.

Load balancer: 192.168.0.1 subnet 255.255.255.0
Modem1: 192.168.1.1 subnet 255.255.255.0
Modem2: 192.168.2.1 subnet 255.255.255.0

I can’t navigate.

A)
the load balancer WAN 1 & 2 are configured as “static IP” with the info given by my ISP. (However, please note that both my modems connect via PPPoA to the internet and the Load Balancer only works on PPPoE, but then again it should have nothing to do with the ethernet connections...).
Also, regardless of the IP I type in, the Load balancer always says “connected” to the modem in this mode. Any other mode (PPPoE, etc.) does not work.

B)
The load balancer has DHCP on, but so have the two modem/routers. I also tried to switch the DHCP of the two routers off, but still it wouldn’t work.

I am confused – shall I change the subnet masks? Shall I specify the gateways IPs?

Any help is welcomed.
Thanks and happy Easter
Roberto

 

[bill001g]

You may be wasting your time if you have already allocated certain users to one ISP and other users to the other. This really is what you will end up doing with the software in the load balancer anyway. Maybe you could if you worked at it really hard make it so all the users could use 1 connections if the other failed.

Not sure how you get the static ip from the ISP on the load balancer wan you would have to put the other routers into bridge mode.

Still let say you did as you stated you assign wan 1 192.168.1.2 and connect it to modem 1 with a gateway of 192.168.1.1 You then connect wan to the modem 2 and user addresses 192.168.2.2 and 192.168.2.1.

You would then use 192.168.0.1 for the lan of the load balancers and let it give the end users 192.168.0.x.

Now this will likely make the device work BUT I strongly suspect it will not do what you really want it to do.

First you can not combine the bandwidth of the 2 connections to increase the download speed of a single session. This is a fundamental thing that can not be fixed because you have 2 different ip.

In addition you can't really even use both connection for a single user. In theory at least you would think a user could donwload 2 different movies from netflix. It works for some sites but many you run into a problem when the site is made up many server. The common one people know about is a game company. In most cases there is a server that authenticates the user and a different server that you play the game on. If you were to run these 2 session on the 2 different ISP you would end up with different IP and the game company would detect this as hacking. You will find all kinds of sites that have random failures because the site thinks the ip is changing.

You end up with assigning certain machines to certain ISP via software instead of the hardware method you now use but the end results are exactly the same.

Load balancers only help if you are will to spend lots of time fine tuning the configurations to avoid the issues. Pretty much the only thing these devices do well is switch between connection when you primary one fails.

 

[roberto71]

Thanks for your reply!

Let me clarify that I allocated some "users" to use one ISP because it was a connection dedicated to an FTP and a web server. But now I no longer need those and I am “recycling” the connection for other people. That is to say that yes, my goal is to have a failover set up, where users could use either connections, and the only working one if one should fail.

Unfortunately our connections aren’t that stable, and a failover unit would really help. I am aware that I didn’t buy a device that could “link up” the connections to give us twice the speed.

Bridging the modem was something I looked into but I couldn’t find a way. I know that I should contact my ISP? And in that case, is the PPPoA connections the modems are providing something that the load balancer should address? Remember that my load balancer is only programmed for PPPoE.
My modems both work by connecting via PPPoA: when connected, they receive an IP which is always the same (a "static" IP that is to say).

The bit about the IPs setting is ok, however, how do I assign 192.168.1.2 to Wan1?
I mean, my modem1 is configured as 192.168.1.1, is that assignment something I should do via the load balancer software? (not sure I can).

Thanks!
Roberto

 

[bill001g]

The simplest way with the least changes is to configure the load balancer to use DHCP to get its ip on the wan interface. That way both modem/router will provide a address. It is not the optimum because you may want to port map or set dmz in the modem/routers in the future and you would prefer that the load balancer ip always stays the same.

Pretty much the only way you can run pppoe on the load balancer wan ports is for the modem/router to be in bridge mode.

I would start with them running as routers just like they are now and hook your load balancer up. This should let you test without disrupting your current installatio.