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
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 THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL, AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail or telephone, and delete the original message immediately. Thank you.
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
THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL, AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail or telephone, and delete the original message immediately. Thank you.
-- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Ken Chase <math@sizone.org> wrote:
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.
*snip* I'm using cable and wimax in the Chicago suburbs with a dual-wan router. Works well, would recommend to others, and so forth.
/kc
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
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:12:59AM -0500, Tim Sanderson's said: 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
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
attached 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
THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL USE OF THE
INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL, AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail or telephone, and delete the original message immediately. Thank you.
-- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
-- Brandon Galbraith Mobile: 630.400.6992 FNAL: 630.840.2141
I use a T1/26xx for primary and a sprint datacard in a little NAT router for secondary. The two boxes sit on the same LAN but provide different gateway IP addresses. The sprint router does the DHCP, so things that ask for DHCP wind up using that as the primary. Some boxes use the 26xx as default gateway with static IP's outside the DHCP range. A smart enough box could choose paths per conversation by playing with the next hop. If that active path for a box fails I can just change it's default gateway to switch to the other service. I have a routable C I use for the LAN, the sprint connections just NAT's it anyway, the other connection is firewalled but not NAT'd. Seems to work ok for me. Could be made fancier. On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Brandon Galbraith < brandon.galbraith@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Ken Chase <math@sizone.org> wrote:
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.
*snip*
I'm using cable and wimax in the Chicago suburbs with a dual-wan router. Works well, would recommend to others, and so forth.
/kc
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
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:12:59AM -0500, Tim Sanderson's said: 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
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
out that keeping the PC available for my other needs would be a good
thought pointing 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
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
the like
RAM and cores would be more important than disk IO).
What are your opinions?
-- Paul
THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL, AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail or telephone, and delete the original message immediately. Thank you.
-- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
-- Brandon Galbraith Mobile: 630.400.6992 FNAL: 630.840.2141
On Dec 30, 2009, at 10:49 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:
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?
I know nothing of how to do this on a Catalyst; for PCs, my own guess is that you're looking far too high-end. If the issue is relaying to the outside, I suspect that a small, dedicated Soekris or the like will do all you need -- there's no point in switching traffic faster than your DSL lines can run. I'm not doing load-balancing, but all traffic from my house to the outside world (I have a cable modem) goes through a Soekris 4801, and I can download large files from my office at 12-13M bps. Further, since the Soekris is bridging some networks, its interfaces are in promiscuous mode, so the box is seeing every packet on my home LAN. Granted, there usually isn't that much traffic, even though the house is wired for GigE -- but I suspect I'm seeing about as much speed, end to end, as the cable modem will give me. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:13:24AM -0500, Steven Bellovin wrote:
I know nothing of how to do this on a Catalyst; for PCs, my own guess is that you're looking far too high-end. If the issue is relaying to the outside, I suspect that a small, dedicated Soekris or the like will do all you need -- there's no point in switching traffic faster than your DSL lines can run. I'm not doing load-balancing, but all traffic from my house to the outside world (I have a cable modem) goes through a Soekris 4801, and I can download large files from my office at 12-13M bps. Further, since the Soekris is bridging some networks, its interfaces are in promiscuous mode, so the box is seeing every packet on my home LAN.
Really? If it's connected to a switch, I'd expect it to only see broadcast/multicast/unknown destination MACs, as well as traffic actually flowing through the Soekris. -- Brett
Brett Frankenberger wrote:
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:13:24AM -0500, Steven Bellovin wrote:
I know nothing of how to do this on a Catalyst; for PCs, my own guess is that you're looking far too high-end. If the issue is relaying to the outside, I suspect that a small, dedicated Soekris or the like will do all you need -- there's no point in switching traffic faster than your DSL lines can run. I'm not doing load-balancing, but all traffic from my house to the outside world (I have a cable modem) goes through a Soekris 4801, and I can download large files from my office at 12-13M bps. Further, since the Soekris is bridging some networks, its interfaces are in promiscuous mode, so the box is seeing every packet on my home LAN.
Really? If it's connected to a switch, I'd expect it to only see broadcast/multicast/unknown destination MACs, as well as traffic actually flowing through the Soekris.
I believe he's refering to the situation where the soekris is doing the bridging, since the soekris only has 4 ethernet ports and two pci slots max it's likely that if you need greater than quantity 3 plus wireless internal interfaces that you'll need a switch. given the performance limits of even a 5501 I tend to disagree that the switching traffic internally in software bridge at less than line rate at 100Mb/s is a great trade-off vs say using a cheapo gig-e switch.
-- Brett
On Dec 30, 2009, at 6:23 PM, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
Brett Frankenberger wrote:
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:13:24AM -0500, Steven Bellovin wrote:
I know nothing of how to do this on a Catalyst; for PCs, my own guess is that you're looking far too high-end. If the issue is relaying to the outside, I suspect that a small, dedicated Soekris or the like will do all you need -- there's no point in switching traffic faster than your DSL lines can run. I'm not doing load-balancing, but all traffic from my house to the outside world (I have a cable modem) goes through a Soekris 4801, and I can download large files from my office at 12-13M bps. Further, since the Soekris is bridging some networks, its interfaces are in promiscuous mode, so the box is seeing every packet on my home LAN.
Really? If it's connected to a switch, I'd expect it to only see broadcast/multicast/unknown destination MACs, as well as traffic actually flowing through the Soekris.
I believe he's refering to the situation where the soekris is doing the bridging, since the soekris only has 4 ethernet ports and two pci slots max it's likely that if you need greater than quantity 3 plus wireless internal interfaces that you'll need a switch. given the performance limits of even a 5501 I tend to disagree that the switching traffic internally in software bridge at less than line rate at 100Mb/s is a great trade-off vs say using a cheapo gig-e switch.
Correct, except that my Soekris has only 3 100Mbps ports. My house is wired with COTS GigE switches. Outbound traffic passes through the Soekris, which bridges to an older 100M bps switch. That, in turn, is connected to the cable modem and a few older devices that don't need much bandwidth and only have 100baseT ports themselves, like a wireless access point and a printer. I have that setup for several reasons. First, I want a point from which I can monitor outbound traffic -- home "routers" and switches don't have monitoring ports. I wanted a DHCP server that supported static allocations. I contemplated (but never implemented) putting an IPsec gateway there; I still may do that. I'm about to move my IPv6 tunnel endpoint to the Soekris. I have contemplated multihoming my house, though I might conclude that that would incur too many spousal points. Finally, at one point I had a more complex topology for my home network -- certain locations in the house were separated, to permit imposition of restrictions for, shall we say, violations of the house AUP... --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
I believe he's refering to the situation where the soekris is doing the bridging, since the soekris only has 4 ethernet ports and two pci slots max it's likely that if you need greater than quantity 3 plus wireless internal interfaces that you'll need a switch. given the performance limits of even a 5501 I tend to disagree that the switching traffic internally in software bridge at less than line rate at 100Mb/s is a great trade-off vs say using a cheapo gig-e switch.
i am not sure this is the forum for home networking (in fact, i am pretty sure it's not), but wtf. i have a 5501 with 8g flash running freebsd 8.0 on a 100/100 b-flets looking kinda like .----------------. | | | b --wlan0| | r | 192.168.0.0/24 ext iij | i --- vr1| LAN hosts, PPP/NAT ---|vr0--- d | DHCP Clients WAN | g --- vr2| pptp 200-209 | e | ... | 0 --- vr3| | | `----------------' there is a gige switch on one of the vr ports, but i currently do not use it (lack of white gaffers' tape to hide cabling). my plan is to use it for ethers to the mac mini by the tv and the mbps on the desktops so that file transfers to/from the mini do not go through the soekris. randy
Paul Bennett wrote:
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.
Have you looked at a simple dual-WAN router?
On Dec 30, 2009, at 10:49 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:
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?
Back at the Toronto NANOG I bumped into someone who had an interesting solution to the multihoming problem. What they had was a machine that would key/sequence the packets and send them out each connection (so if they had 2, it would send a copy out each). Whichever got there first, was decapsulated and forwarded on. Any duplicates/late packets were dropped. This meant that they would always have the speed of the fastest link for either up or down. They also had a method to load-share to bond the two (or more) links together. It was some custom solution they built, but something I would like to see a link to or open-sourced. - Jared
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net> wrote:
On Dec 30, 2009, at 10:49 AM, Paul Bennett wrote:
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?
Back at the Toronto NANOG I bumped into someone who had an interesting solution to the multihoming problem.
What they had was a machine that would key/sequence the packets and send them out each connection (so if they had 2, it would send a copy out each).
Whichever got there first, was decapsulated and forwarded on. Any duplicates/late packets were dropped. This meant that they would always have the speed of the fastest link for either up or down.
They also had a method to load-share to bond the two (or more) links together.
It was some custom solution they built, but something I would like to see a link to or open-sourced.
I guess that method presume some cooperating box out there on the net somewhere to coordinate the far end?
- Jared
On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net> wrote:
Back at the Toronto NANOG I bumped into someone who had an interesting solution to the multihoming problem.
What they had was a machine that would key/sequence the packets and send them out each connection (so if they had 2, it would send a copy out each).
That's exactly what I was alluding to and you may have spoken to the person that wrote the tool I was thinking of, as that's pretty much what I described. (He and I both operate out of Toronto.)
Whichever got there first, was decapsulated and forwarded on. Any duplicates/late packets were dropped. This meant that they would always have the speed of the fastest link for either up or down.
With similar links (my allusion to low latency between the far ends of the upstreams across a local *IX), you really reduce jitter as well. Happy voip. I've used it, it works, just need to get it out there. Esp out here, for my voip because my latencies go up and down, so I'd rather have my packets go out twice and first one wins. (I've assisted with customers that have this service running today and have for a couple years, but I havent set it up locally here yet as I havent had a real need for reliability til I went all VOIP. I used to use plain mpppd across multi providers mainly for agg bw, but that's not nearly as good as this solution for reliability.)
They also had a method to load-share to bond the two (or more) links together.
As I mentioned, I think based on ToS or packet size. And can even pound through packetloss with duplicate packets down the same link (though I dont think that's implimented yet).
It was some custom solution they built, but something I would like to see a link to or open-sourced.
Still is and still hasnt been moved into a proper wide-deploy testing and marketing phase. I think it would be useful, but wanted to gauge your reaction. In fact, Im not sure what the next proper step in the whole endeavour is. If anyone is intersted in testing/using/assisting with marketing/selling it, contact me off list and Ill describe the particulars. Note it aint my tech, I just work closely with the developer. On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 02:08:18PM -0500, Dorn Hetzel said:
I guess that method presume some cooperating box out there on the net somewhere to coordinate the far end?
Also what I alluded to, you need a provider running the COE side of things (and if they go down you lose everything except your basic links, assuming the same one isnt responsible for both links). But we're looking at colo reliability for the COE - done right should be up into the mutli-9s. /kc -- Ken Chase - ken@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front St. W.
On Dec 30, 2009, at 2:08 PM, Dorn Hetzel wrote:
I guess that method presume some cooperating box out there on the net somewhere to coordinate the far end?
Yes. This allowed the provider to use a variety of different technologies to reach a site, eg: IP over CATV, DSL, Fiber, Wireless, etc with built-in backup. - Jared
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.
If you decide to use an IOS-based router, you'll find most what you need here: http://wiki.nil.com/Small_site_multihoming Ivan Pepelnjak blog.ioshints.info / www.ioshints.info
participants (12)
-
Brandon Galbraith -
Brett Frankenberger -
Dorn Hetzel -
Ivan Pepelnjak -
Jared Mauch -
Jason Bertoch -
Joel Jaeggli -
Ken Chase -
Paul Bennett -
Randy Bush -
Steven Bellovin -
Tim Sanderson