DUAL WAN: how to fix new clients to specific WAN?

[MrJackBlack]

Hello Folks,

since two weeks I have two vDSL connections at home, both the same speed: 50/10Mbit. I use the Dual WAN function of my ASUS RT-AC87U, so WAN1 is connected to the WAN Port, WAN2 to LAN2 (for some reason I cannot use LAN1, maybe someone could tell me why).
I use load balancing as Dual WAN option and my idea is to spread all clients with routing rules even to each WAN. I do this because Dual WAN makes it almost impossible to browse the internet or use services like Skype, Facetime or Whatsapp. To avoid those issues each and every client first gets a fixed IP address, than I manually create a routing rule within the Dual WAN options and select one WAN connection, which this particular client is supposed to use. The problem is I don't wanna do this each and every time we have a new client in our network, for example when we have guests. Is there a way to automatically create a rule so that all clients use WAN1, unless I say different?

 

[florid]

What you mean dualwan makes impossible to browse internet?
I use dualwan load balance mode. Haven't noticed any access issue to any Internet application or websites due to Dualwan setup.
The only issue is the dual wan route rules conflict with the routing of merlin openvpn server.

 

[MrJackBlack]

For example: Whatsapp doesn't work proper, it looses connection. I have problems and long delays when I browse the internet. Yesterday I needed to activate an iPhone and it didn't work, as I forget to enter the manual route. My raspberry pi cannot proper apt-get update anymore, as it gets timed out downloading packages... Just a few examples tho.

I mean for my understanding this is the "normal" down side of dual WAN: you cannot use the internet with two different IPs and expect to dont have problems

 

[peraburek]

do you have Public IP on Primary WAN and Secondary WAN ?? this COULD be due to Private IP addresses (example 192.168.xxx.yyy) on your WAN interfaces

AFAIK you can't use PPPoE on BOTH primary WAN and secondary WAN at the same time (ASUS limitation)

I have tested Dual-WAN for short period of time with VDSL (primary WAN) and LTE USB modem as secondary WAN, both interfaces got public IP and I didn't had problems, but I didn't do some in-depth tests of dual-wan routing

 

[MrJackBlack]

Hello,

both internet connections are DHCP via the ISPs modem. What I did: I disabled the DHCP-server on each modem, gave both a fixed private IP (192.168.0.1 and 192.168.9.3) and plugged them in WAN and LAN2. The two WAN-interfaces in the router (WAN and LAN2) than also got two private IPs: 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.4 --> is this maybe a problem?

Remark: I used the above mentioned method as my provider doesn't allow Bridge-Mode on his Modem-Routers Now when I think of it, I created a double NAT-trap

 

[peraburek]

it could be the culprit of your problems, try to get Public IP on each interface (WAN1 and WAN2/LANx) in order to avoid double NAT trap

 

[MrJackBlack]

What you mean by "try to get public IP on each interface"? Should I give them public IPs? Problem is, as mentioned above, I cannot set the ISPs modems to Bridge mode. I ordered now two Zyxel vDSL Gateways (Modems) which I will put to bridge mode and "control" them with the asus. I think this is the only way I can setup this in a proper way.

At the moment I use the DMZ function of each modem in order to forward all traffic to the WAN ports of my asus. Problem is, as I already read in other communities, the DMZ implementation of Swisscom routers is not good, so not "everything" gets forwarded.

 

[peraburek]

you cannot assign Public IP to your WAN1 and WAN2 interface on ASUS, it has to be assigned by your VDSL modem (ISP)
the problem could be if Swisscom uses PPPoE because AFAIK you can use PPPoE only on one WAN interface at the time

so you would need to get Public IP assigned to your WAN interface by DHCP (vdsl modem) and without PPPoE authorization

it has crossed my mind, that DynDNS would make problems as well, because if you use DynDNS in Load-Balancing DUAL WAN mode, you have only one hostname, and two different public IP addresses
so the question is how ASUS has resolved that issue, do they assign DynDNS only to the WAN1 or only to WAN2, because I think it can't be assigned to both interfaces at once

 

[MrJackBlack]

Next week I will receive my two vDSL gateways from Zyxel, which I than set up to Bridge mode to be used together with my RT-AC87U and Dual WAN

 

[Rrrr]

if Swisscom uses PPPoE because AFAIK you can use PPPoE only on one WAN interface at the time

@peraburek
I am tyring to understand if load balancing can work with 2x VDSL providers and checked 380.65_4 from merlin.
Beside entering the PPPOE details for the primary WAN connection, with load balancing enabled, I see the option to add PPPOE details also for the secondary (LAN) interface (latest Merlin fw). Did you try?
Why do you say that you can use PPPOE only on one (WAN) interface?

 

[Rrrr]

Next week I will receive my two vDSL gateways from Zyxel, which I than set up to Bridge mode to be used together with my RT-AC87U and Dual WAN

Hi

Did you get your gateways?
I am facing the same potential issue as you do, would like to know if you solved your question in OP #1.

 

[MrJackBlack]

Well, the problem is in order to specify one WAN-connection to certain clients, you need to enable the Load-Balancing option within the DUAL-WAN settings. Only this creates already a lot of issues in my case. Load-Balancing doesn't work proper in most cases. So basically every new client needs to be routed to one specific WAN connection. If you got some friends over, sharing your Wifi, they will run into problems, as long as you set them manualy to one specific WAN connection. Doing this requires the ASUS to reconnect all connections and it takes 1-2 minutes. This is not a good idea in my eyes.

 

[Rrrr]

Thanks. I was wondering if you can set a default, something like this:

Source IP: 192.168.0.0
Destination IP: (empty) [ means all IP destinations ]
WAN Unit: Primary WAN

That would mean every new device on the LAN would go through the primary connection.
No load balancing.
Can this be done?

 

[MrJackBlack]

Somehow it doesnt work:

For example: I enter a source IP 192.168.1.60 and leave tje destination IP blank. After clicking the plus symbol (to add the rule) it fills in automatically the blank destination field with "all". Clicking again the plus button to add the rule a popup message comes saying "not a valid IP adress"

 

[MrJackBlack]

I just tried this here:

Doesn´t work. Device 192.168.1.169 has the same IP like other devices

 

[Rrrr]

I just tried this here:

Doesn´t work. Device 192.168.1.169 has the same IP like other devices

Can you try the first rule like 192.168.1.0?

Why do you have rule 3 and 4?

 

[MrJackBlack]

I changed it now:

192.168.1.194 > all (primary WAN)
192.168.1.0 > all (secondary WAN)

The device 192.168.1.194 has always the primary WAN IP address, but somehow all other devices are being load balanced using either primary or secondary.

Somebody got an idea how to tell the router to use secondary WAN for all devices, unless routed manualy different?

edit: so basically I can select for each IP one by one the WAN connection, but apperently not for a group or range of IP addresses.

 

[Gatsu]

I do it this way (load balancing mode, primary is LTE connection (Huawei B593-22) and secondary is local radio wisp (Tp-link TL-WR743ND)).

192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.24 are assigned manualy in DHCP, and 192.168.1.25 to 192.168.1.39 are set to auto (IP Pool Starting Address and IP Pool Ending Address)

The downside is that u can only assign 64 addresses on dual wan page (128 entries)

edit:
If I only set one ip once weird stuff happens (lags, no internet connection etc)

 

[Rrrr]

Thanks for the info. I hope Merlin is reading this. It would be great if he sees a way to enable a range.

On the second issue with source IP : all:

I don't understand why it solves lag and other issues, but if true, it may be a solution that can be applied by Merlin (apologies to Merlin for raising so many issues) automatically instead of having to do this manually.

 

[MrJackBlack]

To route each and every IP to its WAN interface is not a solution I like. I tried this in the beginning but like I said: each time a new device connects you have to put another routing rule, as DUAL WAN creates too many issues in my case (Skype and FaceTime doesn't work, as well as downloads).
I will have a look as we might can handle this making a custom script when WAN is started. Yesterday evening I found some script where people route a range of IP address to a VPN connection and a second range to WAN2