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

[Rrrr]

Nice idea, although a GUI solution would solve issues with load balancing experienced by many.

Without wanting to go off topic: about the VPN routing script you found I have a question for you I will ask you in a new thread

 

[MrJackBlack]

Update: Yesterday I experienced another interesting behavior of the ASUS:


After disconnecting secondary WAN from LAN2 and disabling DUAL-WAN function, the internet didn't work at all. I performed couple (soft) restarts: nothing changed. The ASUS got a valid WAN IP-address, so something must have been still good, but no WAN browsing, nor LAN browsing was possible anymore. Complete blackout...
I had to completely reset the RT-AC87U.

For me it seems like that the RT-AC87u and the Zyxel don't harmonize. I put back in place the original SWISSCOM Modem/Router, setup the new wifi SSID to the same as with the old ASUS, same password as well. Within 30 minutes everything was reverted back and I think I will put the ASUS on eBay. Not sure if the struggle I have with this device is "normal", but I'm pretty frustrated.

 

[fred_com]

Hi, in case anyone is still looking for a solution to routing WAN1 to one specific IP, and WAN2 to all others, here's how I've set it up via GUI:
1. Set static IP on the device that should use WAN1 to something lower than 128
2. Set the DHCP to issue IPs starting from .128
3. Setup WAN routes so that your static IP uses WAN1 and IPs starting from .128 are using WAN2, like in the attached picture. In case the picture doesn't show - source IP should be 192.168.2.128/25 for the WAN2 - that's the main thing here that allows traffic from WAN2 to DHCP hosts.

 

[Rrrr]

Hi, in case anyone is still looking for a solution to routing WAN1 to one specific IP, and WAN2 to all others, here's how I've set it up via GUI:
1. Set static IP on the device that should use WAN1 to something lower than 128
2. Set the DHCP to issue IPs starting from .128
3. Setup WAN routes so that your static IP uses WAN1 and IPs starting from .128 are using WAN2, like in the attached picture. In case the picture doesn't show - source IP should be 192.168.2.128/25 for the WAN2 - that's the main thing here that allows traffic from WAN2 to DHCP hosts.

You're the man!
Thanks for the taking the effort to write this tip.
It solves all problems: we can now use Dual WAN and bypass the load balancing (which causes all kinds of outages), without having to manually assign a WAN route to each device.

Question:
In order to get the benefit of all IP addresses, have you tried this (without devices with static IP):
1. Set DHCP to issue IPs starting from .2
2. Setup WAN routes so that all IPs starting from .0 are using WAN2. Use this: 192.168.2.1/24 for the WAN2
3. Setup a WAN route for each specific IP that should use WAN1
=> what I am counting on is that 3. gets priority over 2., does it work?

 

[fred_com]

Sorry for the delay.
I've configured it like you've said (attached), and it does seem to work, thanks for the idea!
There's only one problem now - the router itself is still switching between the WANs on every request. So if you have Transmission or something running on it - this can be a problem. But I think this cannot be solved with the routing table.

 

[Gatsu]

Great thread guys, thx.

There is option in transmission config file: "bind-address-ipv4": "*.*.*.*"
I use it to redirect all trafic to and from transmission (runnig on the router) to my second wan (WISP).

 

[Rrrr]

the router itself is still switching between the WANs on every request

1) How does that affect speed? I have no additional software running on the router.
2) What causes the router to switch between WANs? Using 192.168.2.1/24 to WAN2 defines all IP's 192.168.2.0 - 192.168.2.255 to use WAN2. Why not the router?
3) Will the router not switch between WANs if we use 192.168.2.1/25 ?

 

[fred_com]

Great thread guys, thx.

There is option in transmission config file: "bind-address-ipv4": "*.*.*.*"
I use it to redirect all trafic to and from transmission (runnig on the router) to my second wan (WISP).

@Gatsu, thanks for the tip. If I understand correctly - you need to bind it to the local IP of one of your WANs, which is visible on Network Map?

@Rrrr :
1) It does not affect the speed of connected clients, it's just concerning the software that is running on the router.
2) I'm a Linux noob, so I don't really know why this happens, my guess is that routing tables on the Dual WAN are only used for the client connections, and there are different routing tables for the router inner connections.
3) As I've said - I think that Dual WAN routing table do not apply to the inner router connections, so should not matter which mask we use.

 

[Gatsu]

Yes, in my case it is 192.168.2.2 (my secondary/WISP connection) as show in the attachment.

 

[fred_com]

Got it, thanks.

 

[SerpentXxX]

Hi, in case anyone is still looking for a solution to routing WAN1 to one specific IP, and WAN2 to all others, here's how I've set it up via GUI:
1. Set static IP on the device that should use WAN1 to something lower than 128
2. Set the DHCP to issue IPs starting from .128
3. Setup WAN routes so that your static IP uses WAN1 and IPs starting from .128 are using WAN2, like in the attached picture. In case the picture doesn't show - source IP should be 192.168.2.128/25 for the WAN2 - that's the main thing here that allows traffic from WAN2 to DHCP hosts.

Thanks. I've been looking for a solution against manually routing each device as well. However, can I understand what "/25" is suppose to mean?

 

[Rrrr]

Thanks. I've been looking for a solution against manually routing each device as well. However, can I understand what "/25" is suppose to mean?

Check this out:
IP CIDR calculator

 

[fred_com]

yes, it's the way to specify subnet. But instead of /25 I'm actually using the /24 and then the IP of the device that must use second (or primary) WAN. Just like Rrrr said in his reply to my initial message.

 

[dokape]

I have the same problem as in first post.
Using Merlin 382.1.2, WAN ist a VSDL German Telekom with 56 mbit down,30mbit up and LAN 1 is a Unitymedia 20down, 2Mbit up connections.
With two external Modems, WAN1 is PPPoE and LAN1 is just DHCP-Connected.
I have to assign the clients a specific static IP and route that so specific WAN1 or WAN2.
If I do not do this, I have delays by first calling a website: I have to call it 2 or 3 times until the site then appears.
If I assign the client to a specific WAN, this issue not exist.
The issue also does not exists, if a assign WAN2 (at LAN1) as Backup/failover, shown in General/Network Map as "Cold-Standby". But well, this is not the goal.

 

[matyd]

Hi, in case anyone is still looking for a solution to routing WAN1 to one specific IP, and WAN2 to all others, here's how I've set it up via GUI:
1. Set static IP on the device that should use WAN1 to something lower than 128
2. Set the DHCP to issue IPs starting from .128
3. Setup WAN routes so that your static IP uses WAN1 and IPs starting from .128 are using WAN2, like in the attached picture. In case the picture doesn't show - source IP should be 192.168.2.128/25 for the WAN2 - that's the main thing here that allows traffic from WAN2 to DHCP hosts.

Thank you I've been searching all day for this. Was looking for a way to randomly assign half of my users to DSL modem 1 (WAN1) and the other half to DSL modem 2 (WAN2) as DSL is our only option, the ISP does not allow bonded DSL in this location (remote Hawaii), and we desperately needed a way to spread out the traffic at this B&B.

I was also unfamiliar with the /24 and /25 syntax. Was able to set 192.168.1.0/25 <-> WAN1 and 192.168.1.128/25 <-> WAN2 and so far it seems to be working flawlessly. Double checked and the routing is correct by ISP IP (.2-.127 has WAN1 IP and .128-.254 has WAN2 IP).

Added bonus: When I unplug one of the WANs, all the traffic assigned to that specific WAN appears to seamlessly transition over to the other one until that WAN is plugged back in again. This should help tremendously with up-time too.

Mahalo!