Anyone want to brag about their supreme LAN?

[jtroutma]

Hey Phreenet:

This may or may not be the right thread to ask this in but since we were kida on the subject maybe you could answer a question that has been daunting me for years....

I have hear that it is very possible to setup a Linux box to accept multiple WAN connections and turn them into a single connection. (ie. have two DSLs running in parrallel) How is this done and how difficult is it to setup?

Joe, if this is in the wrong section; I appologise now. I just couldn't resist the possibility of having this question answered.

BTW My LAN is kinda puny myself....

ADSL (384x128) connected to a D-link Router/ 4 port switch w/ uplink to D-link 8 port 10/100 Switch.
System on the network:

1) My System: 1.7 T-bird OC / 786MB RAM / 24GB RAID (3x 7200RPM SCSI) / Adaptec 2940U2W / GF3 OC -> GF3TI500 / WIN2K Pro / much other crap (2 sounds cards, 3 cdrom, etc.)

2) Server: AMD 750 / 512MB RAM / 60GB IBM drive (YES will change out soon) / WIN2K Adv. Server (for games, WINS, Norton, GameVoice, Etc.)

3) Fiance System: Duron 1Ghz / 256MB / 6GB / V3 3500TV

4) RoomMate System: 1.2Ghz T-bird / 256MB / GF3TI200 / 16Gb Raid

5) Kids System: AMD 550 / 256MB / Radeon / 4Gb

6) 3-4 system laying around my desk that need to be plugged in

All system are running at 100Mbps Full duplex

Wish I had a Cisco router but dont have the cash........ have been running into the limitations of those "out-of-the-box" units for some time but it still does the job

Koodos....

[imagex]

I have been trying to do the same and haven't found any software that will do two pppoe connections at once. but found a pretty cheap router nexland 800turbo that does.

[jtroutma]

ooooooooo..........

That looks like a nice piece of equipment there....

However, what does everyone else think about it?
Specs sound wonderful and almost exactly what I am looking for however before I go and shell out ~$400 of my hard earned cash, I want to know what the rest of you think.

Thanks in advance

[phreenet]

Looks really nice, I am sure linux would do the same thing for you, but since I haven't done it myself I wouldn't know how to tell you. If you want to save some money you could also find a Linux User Group aruond your area, they are always a good source for information

[dantheman]

For the connection shareing, I would run a nice product called midpoint gateway. You will need a comptuer with 3 nics, one for each net connection and then the last one for the output to the switch. It costs about 80 bucks, but there are cracks out there for it.

[jtroutma]

Does this product support just load balancing or can the connections run in tandum?

If it only does Load Balancing, then I am leaning towards the Pro800Turbo (I like pure hardware over software anyday )

Thanks though

[imagex]

midpoint will NOT do two pppoe connections, I ve been round and round with them. to use midpoint you must first be able to connect to two connection at the same time on the same computer" they dont tell ya that till later". there are alot of ways to load balance but if u cant connect two line there of no use. linux maybe able to but in 200+ hours of trying myself I've yet to find anyone that can do it. I've conntacted cisco "$2500 router pluse wan adapters = $3000??" and talked to a network guru that wrote the book "loadbalancing" but he could only tell me that it can be done on cluster servers, and called england and talked to the founder of Smoothwall a linux firewall/router and they say it would be nice but they dont know how. I just order a 800turbo to keep myself from lossing my mind trying to get it setup a "free" way. there i feel better, sorry for venting

[phreenet]

Ohh yeah did I forget to tell you Cisco was expensive , oops .....
But I don't think a Cisco router cost that much, the 1720 series isn't that bad. Specfically the 1721, at CDW it cost $899.01. Now add some WIC cards, technically they are LAN cards, but your cable/DSL modem is the "WAN" device in this case. The WIC-1ENET is the card you need, two of them, they cost $235.99 each at CDW, now your router will have the three interfaces it needs. Total comes to $1370.99 + S&H, thats still a lot of money though....

[imagex]

I just got my new 800turbo setup and running. Heres what i found so far: dyn dns only will update on one wan port or the other " tech support says they have a beta frimware update that there working on to enable it on both. and it doesn't have a detailed log on port blocking or a nice little trafic graph like my smoothwall box , they say they might be adding both in updates. Other than that it kicks ass now i have full use of both my dsl lines and can direct my servers to witch line i want them to use and all other trafic flows around them. ahh!! this is much better. I,m going to run one wan through my old router frist and let it do my dns update and have the nextland do the other untill they update. all in all I'm happy i got it,it has simplifed my work.

[imagex]

Originally posted by phreenet
Ohh yeah did I forget to tell you Cisco was expensive , oops .....
But I don't think a Cisco router cost that much, the 1720 series isn't that bad. Specfically the 1721, at CDW it cost $899.01. Now add some WIC cards, technically they are LAN cards, but your cable/DSL modem is the "WAN" device in this case. The WIC-1ENET is the card you need, two of them, they cost $235.99 each at CDW, now your router will have the three interfaces it needs. Total comes to $1370.99 + S&H, thats still a lot of money though....

they said i would need a 2600 router.

[RedTalon19]

linksys 8 port router/switch hooked up to a cable modem. 2 comps in my room, 1 in each of my 3 rommies rooms, 1 in the basement and we have plans for another in the living room to hook into the entertainment center (divx, mp3, pr0n, etc)

heh i also setup a 'poser' account on everybody's mach so that we all have read access only for the shares... its great to log onto somebody's music as poser...

i may need to get another 4 or 8 port hub for the lan i am hopin to put together for a bunch of friends... like 10-14 of em... gee and i thought my shinny new 8 port was gonna be nuff

[clone]

2600's are nice played with 12 of them the other week and next week i will be playing with 12 more

[phreenet]

2600s are too small , what do we got here two serial MAUI's or two ethernet ports?? But ohh well, the smallest routers I play with are 4000 series switches running L3 code. Most of the routers here are Foundry Big Iron 4000s and 8000s, big beasty gigE all over the place.

[clone]

then again you work at the atom smasher place and i play with them at my school that is good eq for a school dont you think

[phreenet]

I wouldn't go to a school unless they had no less than Cisco 12000 series router/switches.

[Apoc]

Hmz, well here's my lan now but I will post a new one in a month because I'm gonna get a new room

My main network:

• Server/router P1 133mhz 70mb EDO-ram runs email web and mysql servers
• Apocbak Pentium III 700 MHZ my main PC in a nice 19" rackmount
• De-bastaard Tbird 1800 my brother's pc
• Dwaze Celeron 366@512 Mhz A friend's pc
• PAULPC Tbird 1200 my dad's pc
• TESTBAK Pentium 1 200mhz 64 MB ram my test server

My expansion network for a lan-party are 3 cabletron ELS100-24TX switches (24 port 10/100) switches But I never got to use them all at home with all ports connected because we don't have enough power for it, so we lend them to lan-parties.

[airspirit]

I just hooked up my entire neighborhood to my broadband link (I'm pulling 2Mbps down/600Kbps up) via wireless. I'm running my cable in through a Linksys 4pt DSL router, splitting to 1x700Mhz Athlon (XP Pro), 1x1900XP@1850 WC box (XP Pro), and 1xNetgear 802.11b access point. I have two desktops in the house above me pulling through individual USB wireless adapters (Win98), one desktop nextdoor on a USB adapter (Win2k Pro), one down below in another building pulling through a PCI card (WinME), and two up the road pulling through a 8db gain directional antenna->DLink bridge->hub->2xUSB Ethernet adapter to set up early next week (both older laptops running Win98 and ME). I may be adding one or two more machines in the near future (bringing me up to ten on one cable link, *shudder*), and I'm thinking about bringing in another cable link and either multiplexing the lines (if I can figure out how the heck to do it) or just run two wireless subnets each capped at a maximum of five connections. I have become the darned system administrator for my entire neighborhood ... every geek's wet dream (well, interspersed with other things). My poor router is getting pounded on the DHCP issues (it doesn't remove IPs from the DHCP table upon disconnect for some reason, and then allocates the machine a second/third/etc IP when they log back on) so I'm thinking about going to a static IP setup. With how clueless my neighbors are, it might end up being more a hassle then it's worth ... I might just wait for the sparks to come flying from my router.

[airspirit]

Hey guys, I think I found a dually WAN router for cheap. The Hawking FR24 dual WAN 4pt router goes for under $100 normally, and appears to function just like the Nexland. Anybody have any ideas or comments? I think I'm going to buy one of these suckers and slap a second cable link or an aDSL link into my network (possibly as much as 4Mbps down/1.2Mbps up). The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of 10+ people simultaneously sucking data through one cable link during peak cable usage hours. I have so much hardware laying around, though, that I don't know that I want to blow a hundred bucks, though.

[imagex]

Hi all, The FR-24 is buggy!!! I have one and I am a dealer and it's just not ready yet "frezz up, wont do dhcp right, cant bind IP's to a wan for server's ,I'd give it some time for them to work out the bugs" I all so carry Nexland 800 turbo and it's by far better"
http://hardtofindpc.com

[jtroutma]

Thanks Imagex for showing up and making your "observations" about the FR24. Hope you didnt mind that I quoted you in another thread.

[airspirit]

From how I described my system above, how would you think it would run? I am not going to be hosting any form of web server, since I can't get a static IP on my cable conx. Simply, I'm just looking for a way to route two broadband connections into one network simultaneously. I'm running a linksys DSL/Cable 4pt router now, and if I was to run the FR24 into the WAN port of the linksys and use the linksys to run my DHCP (is that possible? I'm not too up on weird layouts like that), could I overcome the DHCP problems in the Hawking box?

If you could describe how the dual line load allocation works, I think that would help my decision greatly. Does it work that when one gets pegged it starts pulling from the other or does it require you to set a max limit before it adds in the second feed? That could be a problem with a cable line, since I can never count on what my max speed will be (sometimes 1Mbps, sometimes 2.5-3Mbps), I may not ever reach that max limit causing the second line ever to turn on. Does that make sense? I guess what I'm asking is if it automatically senses if a line is full, or do you have to set a max data limit to the first line.

[imagex]

That is one thing I don't like it will do like 128kbps and then rolls the data to the next line , the nexland you can set the % of balance like 50%,40%,etc or fail over. and it realy makes your network more flexable. I don't like the price of the nexland but it does rock.

[airspirit]

So it maxes out at 128kbps per line??? That is utter crap, if I'm reading you correctly. Can you set it up so that each individual IP on the network will search for the strongest line and go there?

[airspirit]

I really want to figure this out. Am I reading you right that there is a strict per-WAN bandwidth ceiling?

[imagex]

No, it "the fr-24" uses wan #1 and what ever you have it set for 128, or MORE it will fail over to the next wan, so it seams to me to be more fail over than balance. I don't have mine hooked up right now but I think it started @128 and went up. What is realy upsetting is that to get support you can't call a 1-800 number and there was only 1 person there that knew the router!!!!!! now it's been a week with no word from them and I'm getting a little pissed, If I can't get help and I'm a dealer what the hell hope does the end user have," I will not sell any untill they make some major improvements"