Backup data use on secondary backup WAN

[RLFRANK]

Searched but couldn't find anything relevant to this question: Have a new Asus XT12 that uses Xfinity with a Motorola cable modem as its primary WAN on the 2.5 gbps WAN port (delivering a nice 1.4 gbps down on Xfinitiy's 1.2 gbps plan), but given (unfortunately) Xfinity's somewhat unreliable connectivity where we are, wanted to configure a backup WAN using the very nice feature in the Asus firmware. To keep on-going costs down, using a Netgear LM1200 Cellular gateway (which accepts SIMs from the 3 major carriers), attached to the XT12 on an unused 1gbps ethernet port, with a Tello SIM, which works fine as backup except for one not-so-minor problem: Tello is a very nice VMNO for T-Mobile that has a wide variety of price/data capacity options, which are easily changeable on-the-fly, which is nice since most of the time I simply want the Cellular modem there as backup, so I don't need to pay for unneeded capacity when it's not being used. (By default I sign up for their 1GB per month option which only costs $6 per month) But for reasons I can't figure out, even when the primary Xfinity WAN is fully online without interruption (which is most of the time), the Asus XT12 is still using about 60 to 100 MBytes PER DAY of data capacity on the secondary WAN. I can imagine periodic polling of the secondary WAN to check its status, but hard to understand why this would require 60 to 100 MB PER DAY, which can get costly when on a Tello/T-Mobile data plan which is inexpensive when not being actively used but gets pricey when using 100 MB PER DAY for simply sitting there as backup. Any idea why the Asus firmware is doing so much polling of the secondary WAN and what might be done to reduce this?

 

[Tech9]

using the very nice feature in the Asus firmware

If it was very nice what do you think this script is fixing?

WANFailover - Dual WAN Failover Script ***v1.6.0 Released***

Current Thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dual-wan-failover-v2-release.83674/

www.snbforums.com

WANFailover - Dual WAN Failover ***v2 Release***

I just looked at the code. And yeah it might be that mine is stuck there too. When it's stuck. Does CTRL+C work? Yes

www.snbforums.com

Read around SNB Forums how many people had issues with Dual WAN on Asus routers and what workarounds are available. What most likely is going to happen in your case - the router won't switch the connections when your main ISP connection is restored and will drain your backup ISP before you notice it. About 60-100MB/day issue - make sure you set it to Fail Over only (with Fail Back) and not in Load Balance mode. Good luck from this point.

 

[RLFRANK]

If it was very nice what do you think this script is fixing?

WANFailover - Dual WAN Failover Script ***v1.6.0 Released***

Current Thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dual-wan-failover-v2-release.83674/

www.snbforums.com

WANFailover - Dual WAN Failover ***v2 Release***

I just looked at the code. And yeah it might be that mine is stuck there too. When it's stuck. Does CTRL+C work? Yes

www.snbforums.com

Read around SNB Forums how many people had issues with Dual WAN on Asus routers and what workarounds are available. What most likely is going to happen in your case - the router won't switch the connections when your main ISP connection is restored and will drain your backup ISP before you notice it. About 60-100MB/day issue - make sure you set it to Fail Over only (with Fail Back) and not in Load Balance mode. Good luck from this point.

I really appreciate the pointer to the thread on alternative scripts and will look at that option. But in my case it's not draining the backup, just using 60 to 100 MB per day. Also I have definitely configured backup in Fail Over mode with Fail Back enabled and not Load Balance mode. I have also tested this out by unplugging the primary WAN and it switched over to the secondary WAN and then switched back when I plugged the primary WAN back in. So everything is working the way it's supposed to, but just no explanation of what it's doing with those 60 to 100 MB per day in usage! Was hoping someone might have some idea of what might be doing with that unexplained data usage on the secondary WAN. Out of curiosity, I may put an ethernet logger on that port using a temporary switch that has port replication enabled just so that I can see a breakout of the traffic to see if it makes any sense. But thanks again for pointing me to the Dual WAN scripting.

 

[Tech9]

So everything is working the way it's supposed to

Yes, when you physically unplug the cables you make it work with your hands. It doesn't work reliably when the cables are connected, but the service is lost. It may or may not fail over/back or you may have to wait for minutes before it realizes WAN status have changed. Load Balancing mode - don't even waste your time with it. The only sure fix is proper Dual WAN router in front of your Asus managing the WAN connections. Unfortunately, the cheap options under $100 are with Gigabit ports - TP-Link ER605, Ubiquiti ER-X, MikroTik hEX, etc. entry level business routers. They can do Dual/Triple WAN with proper fail over/back in 30 seconds and load balancing without breaking connections. This feature on Asus home routers is good for advertising purposes only. The only proper Dual WAN home router I have found so far is Synology RT2600ac and perhaps the newer model RT6600ax running the same SRM OS.

but just no explanation of what it's doing with those 60 to 100 MB per day in usage

No idea on this one.

 

[RLFRANK]

Yes, when you physically unplug the cables you make it work with your hands. It doesn't work reliably when the cables are connected, but the service is lost. It may or may not fail over/back or you may have to wait for minutes before it realizes WAN status have changed. Load Balancing mode - don't even waste your time with it. The only sure fix is proper Dual WAN router in front of your Asus managing the WAN connections. Unfortunately, the cheap options under $100 are with Gigabit ports - TP-Link ER605, Ubiquiti ER-X, MikroTik hEX, etc. entry level business routers. They can do Dual/Triple WAN with proper fail over/back in 30 seconds and load balancing without breaking connections. This feature on Asus home routers is good for advertising purposes only. The only proper Dual WAN home router I have found so far is Synology RT2600ac and perhaps the newer model RT6600ax running the same SRM OS.



No idea on this one.

Actually, when I tried disconnecting the coax to Xfinity at the cable modem to test this out (so as far as the Asus router was concerned cables were still connected, and this simulated a primary WAN failure), the router also failed over as it was supposed to and when the coax was re-connected it also reverted back to the primary WAN. The roughly minute delay in both fail over and return are expected given the settings for how long to wait before determining that a failure (and failback) have occurred. So my frustration aren't that the failover and failback aren't working but simply that it's using up (expensive) bandwidth on the failover network when it doesn't need to. And since I do need at least a 2.5 gbps router connection for my primary WAN doesn't sound like any inexpensive solutions are possible. So playing around with the scripting options sound like my best bet.