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Struggling with a Dual WAN Config

Tags:
  • WAN
  • TP-Link
  • Configuration
  • Networking
Last response: in Networking
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July 14, 2014 4:52:10 AM

I have a TP-Link TL-R470T+. It is used in my works network, we use various services including VoIP, I need the router set up to use BOTH WAN links at the same time, and then if one link goes down I need it to automatically swap all services/connections to the active WAN port, however I cannot stress enough when both WAN connections are active I need it to use both.

I have consulted with TP-Link support however they missed my problem and advised me to set one to primary and one to backup but this will not solve my problem, I need both active at same time but all need redundancy when one link goes down so that the IP phones stay connected at all times.

So in short, I need the config to work so that if the VoIP phone is on a call and lets say its being routed through WAN port 2 because WAN1 is busy, I need to know that if WAN 2 goes down (or i turn it off) that the router will automatically router the VoIP phone out through WAN 1 and not lose connection

Edit:

Firmware Version: 5.2.2 Build 20140422 Rel.59140s
Hardware Version: TL-R470T+ v3.0

More about : struggling dual wan config

July 14, 2014 5:34:43 AM

Having 2 internet connections leaves you 2 options of config:

1. Load balancing - you use both internet connections but if one link fails, the other wan link is used (internet will still work but voip will disconnect and you will have to start call again when wan fail.)
2. Link Backup - you only use one 1 link all the time, in case of failure it will automatically switch to the other WAN (your VOIP call won't be disconnected in case of WAN failure)
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July 14, 2014 6:00:07 AM

Clocker97 said:
Having 2 internet connections leaves you 2 options of config:

1. Load balancing - you use both internet connections but if one link fails, the other wan link is used (internet will still work but voip will disconnect and you will have to start call again when wan fail.)
2. Link Backup - you only use one 1 link all the time, in case of failure it will automatically switch to the other WAN (your VOIP call won't be disconnected in case of WAN failure)



Thanks for the reply, Is there no way to have the load balancing work so that VoIP will not disconnect? When we first go the router this was working I was on call via WAN 1 we disconnected it and after a 2 sec drop the call continued, however since I had to update the firmware this has stopped working, not only that load balancing fails too, for example my PC is always put through WAN 1 no matter what, and when WAN1 goes down my PC does not connect.
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July 14, 2014 6:48:50 AM

Check if upgrading your firmware doesn't reseted your configuration on router. It may be the reason why load balancing doesn't work. If it did, you have to configure load balancing again.
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July 14, 2014 7:08:44 AM

I will assume you are talking about consumer internet connections and you are not using a commercial configuration where you are running a routing protocol and have a block of routable internet addresses assigned to you.

Using a actual router that can run a routing protocol with the ISP is really the only way you can accomplish what you want.

You have a number of problems. The main one when you have 2 internet connection is you have 2 different IP addresses. In your case if you have a voip call up the session is between these 2 ip. You can not suddenly change the ip in the middle of a call and expect it to not drop the call. Now the voice client could detect the failure and then register the new ip but you would have to reestablish the call.

This 2 ip concept is also a major problem for PC. You obviously can't use both IP to try to download a single file since the far end server would get confused and assume it was 2 different users. This is fundamental to how TCPIP works and can't be changed. In addition many web sites are made up of a number of servers many times at different locations. A game server is the most obvious but banks work that way too. The game server has a login authentication server that checks your credentials. It then passes control over to the gaming machine itself. If the connection for your pc would use 1 ip to talk to the authentication server and a different one to talk to the game machine it would be detected as a attack and blocked. This means you really need to always send all traffic for a particular machine over a single ip. So you would have to manually pick certain ip on one ISP and other on the other.

Now in theory you could split your users over the 2 ISP and if one goes down they could share the remaining one. The huge problem is what does "down" mean. Its not like the ethernet port powers off when you lose your ISP. Some routers can try to ping stuff but how much loss is too much and what device you ping does that mean the server is down or the internet.

You can only do so much with a dual wan router to really get what you need you need to discuss redundancy options with your ISP they likely have a number of suggestions on what they can offer you....for a price of course
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July 14, 2014 7:16:06 AM

Clocker97 said:
Check if upgrading your firmware doesn't reseted your configuration on router. It may be the reason why load balancing doesn't work. If it did, you have to configure load balancing again.


When I upgraded it actually never reset the config, instead it corrupted it, I then reset it and started again but since the load balancing seems to fail
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July 14, 2014 7:23:57 AM

bill001g said:
I will assume you are talking about consumer internet connections and you are not using a commercial configuration where you are running a routing protocol and have a block of routable internet addresses assigned to you.

Using a actual router that can run a routing protocol with the ISP is really the only way you can accomplish what you want.

You have a number of problems. The main one when you have 2 internet connection is you have 2 different IP addresses. In your case if you have a voip call up the session is between these 2 ip. You can not suddenly change the ip in the middle of a call and expect it to not drop the call. Now the voice client could detect the failure and then register the new ip but you would have to reestablish the call.

This 2 ip concept is also a major problem for PC. You obviously can't use both IP to try to download a single file since the far end server would get confused and assume it was 2 different users. This is fundamental to how TCPIP works and can't be changed. In addition many web sites are made up of a number of servers many times at different locations. A game server is the most obvious but banks work that way too. The game server has a login authentication server that checks your credentials. It then passes control over to the gaming machine itself. If the connection for your pc would use 1 ip to talk to the authentication server and a different one to talk to the game machine it would be detected as a attack and blocked. This means you really need to always send all traffic for a particular machine over a single ip. So you would have to manually pick certain ip on one ISP and other on the other.

Now in theory you could split your users over the 2 ISP and if one goes down they could share the remaining one. The huge problem is what does "down" mean. Its not like the ethernet port powers off when you lose your ISP. Some routers can try to ping stuff but how much loss is too much and what device you ping does that mean the server is down or the internet.

You can only do so much with a dual wan router to really get what you need you need to discuss redundancy options with your ISP they likely have a number of suggestions on what they can offer you....for a price of course


Thanks for your reply, yes your correct we are using 2 ADSL Lines, unfortunately we do not get cable in our area yet and any other solutions would cost thousands unfortunately, this is why its vital to have the router set the way I said in original post, our ADSL Lines are only standard UK 20Mbps down and 1mbps up. Due to this its beneficial to have load balancing because we can push the combined speed to 35mbps down and almost 2mbps up which is far more beneficial.

I am aware that 2 ISPs = 2IPs however before the firmware upgrade I had basically the same settings I do now and the VoIP calls did not drop, they lagged for 2 seconds then the phones were sent through the other WAN port. The router can and does usually detect when one of the WAN links is down, granted the port wont power down but the router checks this itself.

the idea behind this plan was to introduce some good redundancy as our ADSL connections go down randomly before we had to half our devices between two connections which meant having to quickly change which routers devices were in when one went down, this is not practical.

I know there is a way to do what I need done. I know there are limitations and whatnot to battle with but the VoIP service can function using different IP's.
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July 14, 2014 7:37:14 AM

First step i to configure wan1 and wan2 connections with proper ip adresses, gateways etc (or use DHCP for them), than you need to configure your LAN. The third step is to configure load balancing. If configured correctly it will work the same way as it was.
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July 14, 2014 8:07:38 AM

Clocker97 said:
First step i to configure wan1 and wan2 connections with proper ip adresses, gateways etc (or use DHCP for them), than you need to configure your LAN. The third step is to configure load balancing. If configured correctly it will work the same way as it was.


WAN 1 & 2 both pull a Static IP from the ISPs router/hub (this is a LAN Gateway IP as our ISPs do not provide modem only options) LAN is also configured, I have all our devices mapped to a DHCP reservation too, I even have DNS servers set to 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4 as the routers DNS server broke down too.

and load Balancing is also configured, I have turned SIP ALG off too to help the VoIP service (read in various places this should be turned off despite the fact its designed to help) and I have application optimized routing disabled too so that devices can be routed via either WAN port.

It really is a shame that CISCO is so expensive...
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July 14, 2014 1:00:07 PM

Which WAN works now? What happens when you disconnect cable from this port? Is your Internet still working on second WAN after disconnecting main WAN?

If you have spare hardware you can try pfsense, it has the ability to load balance 2 or more wan connections and a lot more.
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July 15, 2014 4:04:09 AM

Clocker97 said:
Which WAN works now? What happens when you disconnect cable from this port? Is your Internet still working on second WAN after disconnecting main WAN?

If you have spare hardware you can try pfsense, it has the ability to load balance 2 or more wan connections and a lot more.


Currently both WAN links work, if I disconnect a WAN link all devices that were using that link lose connection and are not automatically swapped to the other WAN link. That is the problem, until a WAN connection goes down everything functions as required, but when it does go down the problem is that phones and computers lose connectivity if they were using that WAN the only way to correct it is obviously reboot the downed connection and then reboot the device which is the same problem we had before the router was bought and to be honest unless this can be solved the router is useless for us.
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