Anyone actually using Dual-Wan in Load Balance mode?

[Kushan]

Hi all,

I've searched around on this forum and although I can find a few posts where people are stating that they intend on using the Dual-WAN feature, I can't find many from those actually using it.

I know it's entirely experimental, which is why I'm just asking for people's thoughts and experiences from using it. From what I can gather, the main issues are that the WebUI doesn't work quite right and that the failover mode doesn't fix itself when the primary WAN comes back up.

If that's the case, does load balance mode work ok?

The reason I ask is that I happen to have 2 cable modems that work side-by-side and if I could connect them both up, it'd be sweet. I'm happy to have a play and experiment, knowing full well it might not work, but I was just wondering if anyone has got the dual-wan stuff to work at all.

I'm lucky in that neither modem needs any particular settings or PPoE or anything like that, so I'm hoping that the experimental Dual WAN will work well enough for it. No biggie if it doesn't, though.

 

[Kushan]

Apologies for the double post but after some experimenting myself, I'm not expecting a reply.

So here's the deal. I installed the latest experimental build that supports Dual-WAN, hooked everything up and set it up as follows.

My "primary" modem and secondary modem connect in the same way - automatic IP. No IP specific settings required, no MAC cloning needed or anything like that.

On the Dual WAN page, Primary WAN is set to WAN and Secondary WAN is set to LAN 4. Mode is set to LoadBalance and Load balance configuration is set to 1:1.

From here...well, that's it. The problem is, I only ever connect via the primary WAN. I've tried experimenting with various load balance configurations, but only the primary WAN is used. If I take that WAN down, I lose all internet access.

Now when browsing earlier, I came across this old thread: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=7884&page=2

In it, someone has stated that when they go to the internet connection page, the secondary connection lists its connection type as "USB Modem". I believe this is indeed the issue, even though on the configuration page both have been set to "Automatic IP", it's not actually being set within the router and the router is still treating it like a USB connection.

Now, I know that Merlin himself is probably aware of this and I apologise for dragging up the issue again, but I hadn't seen a clear answer one way or the other so I thought I'd post my findings.

Just to be clear - dual WAN does NOT work. At all. Now, unless someone happens to know a few ssh commands I can try to force it to treat the second connection as Automatic IP, then I think we can finally put this one to bed.