2x DSL not so backhoe-resistant. I like mixing cable with dsl. Tasty disparate paths (modulo garden shears applied to the single ingres point to your basement) if not technologies, orgs and methodologies. Or radio + dsl, or pigeon + mule, take your pick. Would be great if you could rate your connections somehow (ToS? packets under 1000 bytes?) and for those with high priority (voip, ssh < 10K/s != scp, etc) spray redundant udp packets containing your data down all links, first packet to the end point wins. Higher speed stuff just gets RR'd for aggregate bandwidth. Could even brute force your way through packetloss (ever try typing into an ssh session with even 10% pl?) with redundant packets down the same links, just use up 10K/s of bandwidth for 1K/s of desired throughput. Nicer with the local cable co *IX'd a few ms away from the DSL endpoints. (I suspect that higher latency differences would make this less viable). Course there's still the issue of a single org at the endpoint - that's your SPOF, but it's easily up more than my dsl at home here is. If it fails, use your base connection to the other provider for internets (unfortunately your ips for inbound connections wont be working during the outtage without more tricks at the far end). Does mulitlink specify any ability such as this, or is this a non existent protocol as yet? Would anyone find it useful? /kc On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:12:59AM -0500, Tim Sanderson's said:
Do you control or have access to the provider side-the PPPoE server-and would both PPPoE connections hit the same PPPoE server at the provider? If so, I recommend setting up a PPP multilink with both DSL lines. The DSL provider would have to support that capability. I also recommend something like a Cisco 2691 router with two WIC-1ADSL cards. I have used this hardware for a 2xDSL multilink to my own home and it worked well.
-- Tim
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Bennett [mailto:paul.w.bennett@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 10:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Consumer-grade dual-homed connectivity options?
Not sure whether this is an appropriate place to post this, but I thought I'd give it a shot, since you're all knowledgeable folks with regard to networking things...
At home, I currently run two DSL lines. Right now, we just have two separate LANs, one connected to each line, with my wife's devices attached to one, and my devices attached to the other. For a while now, I've been thinking about setting up a load-balancing routing solution to give both of us access to both lines.
I have the opportunity to acquire a refurbed Cisco Catalyst 2960 at a ridiculously low price. I also have access to a (nominally) spare quad-core 64-bit PC with 8GB of RAM. I say "nominally" because I'm thinking about setting it up as a media center / gaming rig connected to the TV in the den. That's largely beside the point, but it bears pointing out that keeping the PC available for my other needs would be a good thing.
So.
Is it going to be a more-effective solution to drop a few bucks on the 2960 and go through the hassle of learning how to set it up (and then setting it up), or would I be better off putting a secured Linux distro (e.g. gentoo-hardened, or something) on the semi-spare PC and running the load-balancing via iproute2 and friends?
Either way, I'm looking at a learning curve, and a good amount of time fannying around getting the damn thing working -- there's a good chance I'd spend almost as much cash on the PC-based solution getting good-quality network cards, and maybe fast HDD tech (though it seems like RAM and cores would be more important than disk IO).
What are your opinions?
-- Paul
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