Hows failover working with rmerlin? RT-AC68U

[ceromus]

I was just about to ship back the RT-AC68U I recently ordered as I found the failover /w watchdog performance to be really bad using official firmware. Is it significantly better with this firmware?

Thanks

 

[RMerlin]

I was just about to ship back the RT-AC68U I recently ordered as I found the failover /w watchdog performance to be really bad using official firmware. Is it significantly better with this firmware?

Thanks

I've done no change to the Dual WAN code, so the behaviour should be the same as with stock firmware.

 

[ceromus]

thank you

 

[Trip]

If you're serious about multi-wan load-balancing and/or failover that just works, I'd suggest investing in a purpose-built product. Peplink, DrayTek, CradlePoint, etc. Or any one of the numerous security appliance vendors (Zyxel, Cyberoam, Fortinet, SonicWall, etc.).

 

[ceromus]

If you're serious about multi-wan load-balancing and/or failover that just works, I'd suggest investing in a purpose-built product. Peplink, DrayTek, CradlePoint, etc. Or any one of the numerous security appliance vendors (Zyxel, Cyberoam, Fortinet, SonicWall, etc.).

Do you have any personal experience with any of them? I would be aiming for something under 300 dollars.

 

[RMerlin]

I've used a Linksys RV042 in the past for a customer's failover, and it worked great.

 

[noric]

Hey RMerlin, do you happen to know if Asus is still working on the dual-wan code? They messed it up for me with .376 firmware version.
Thanks.

 

[RMerlin]

Hey RMerlin, do you happen to know if Asus is still working on the dual-wan code? They messed it up for me with .376 firmware version.
Thanks.

I haven't really paid attention to the Dual WAN specific changes of the past few releases, but I know there's been some changes a few weeks ago. Also I see a lot of USB modem work being done lately.

 

[noric]

I haven't really paid attention to the Dual WAN specific changes of the past few releases, but I know there's been some changes a few weeks ago. Also I see a lot of USB modem work being done lately.

Thanks.
378 firmware didn't fix it for me. The secondary wan still stays "disconnected" and not in "standby". Let's hope they eventually get the job done...

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks.
378 firmware didn't fix it for me. The secondary wan still stays "disconnected" and not in "standby". Let's hope they eventually get the job done...

That's just the way Asus reports it on the webui. That does not imply that it's not working, you will have to actively simulate a primary failure to observe if it does switch.

 

[Trip]

Do you have any personal experience with any of them? I would be aiming for something under 300 dollars.

I've used all the brands I mentioned at least once and simply find that flavor of devices tend to perform better than the consumer stuff at failover/aggregation/load-balancing. You might also try Linksys LRT/Cisco RV, but I'd say those are a bit more subject to trial-and-error (and reviews indicate as such). For example, last I confirmed, the RV320 doesn't support WAN aggregation, which somewhat defeats the purpose of multi-WAN in many instances. So it's more about what fits best for your needs. For $300, you certainly have options. What is the total upload/download in Mb/s that you're looking to route? And do you wish to aggregate, load-balance, or just failover? Or any mix of the three, or all?

 

[noric]

That's just the way Asus reports it on the webui. That does not imply that it's not working, you will have to actively simulate a primary failure to observe if it does switch.

Really? It does stay on "standby" with .374 firmware. You say they only changed the label in the web UI?

 

[ceromus]

I've used all the brands I mentioned at least once and simply find that flavor of devices tend to perform better than the consumer stuff at failover/aggregation/load-balancing. You might also try Linksys LRT/Cisco RV, but I'd say those are a bit more subject to trial-and-error (and reviews indicate as such). For example, last I confirmed, the RV320 doesn't support WAN aggregation, which somewhat defeats the purpose of multi-WAN in many instances. So it's more about what fits best for your needs. For $300, you certainly have options. What is the total upload/download in Mb/s that you're looking to route? And do you wish to aggregate, load-balance, or just failover? Or any mix of the three, or all?

50mbps down 5mbps up, the 2nd wan is currently at like 3mbps/1mbps so i was planning to do just failover. I wasn't aware there was reliable WAN aggregation available. I use to do that a long time ago with software but it was kind a pita. I went ahead and ordered a peplink balance 20 but im still open to suggestions. I think my primary objective is to have the fastest failover possible given that the ISPs in my area are pretty bad.

 

[bkandor]

Hi,

I just setup dual wan load balancing (1:1 ratio) today with the latest merlin firmware (thanks merlin!). It would not at first establish 2 connections (get two ip's) from the same provider until I cloned a mac address into the wan1 settings. It seems the rt-ac66u only has one mac address available unless I'm totally missing something.

It is 'working' technically but seems totally chaotic. If one wan is saturated downloading a file and you are at another computer and go to open a webpage, it will open very slowly as it's using the same wan.

Obviously it would need to sense the saturation and intelligently switch to the other wan but it does not appear to do this. I wonder how qos would work in a dual wan load balance setup? For e.g. when you input your up/down speeds I wonder what to set? Both my connections are a paltry 15/1.25 cable connection.

Or is there a way to direct specific types of traffic to specific wan connections?

 

[Trip]

Nice pick, ceromus. That's probably what I would have recommended for <100Mb/s. Last I dealt with them (a couple years back), Peplink's support was solid - much better than, say, Asus that's for damn sure. Let us know how it goes when you get it all setup. Cheers.

 

[ceromus]

I tested the peplink balance 20 a little last night. It takes 23-26 seconds to failover which isn't really acceptable. I think thats mostly because it puts the backup connection in a cold standby mode until WAN1 fails unless I keep them both enabled (aka load balancing) which I did not want to do. I will update my post if support informs me of a work around but I just thought i'd post now just in case someone else is after the same thing and considering the same peplink balance 20.

Edit: they gave me a work around ill try it later tonight.

Edit2: ok with the work around they gave me to leave the 2nd connection always connected but set outbound policy to give priority to main connection it brought the failover time down to about 4 seconds so.... \o/

 

[PeterTWJ]

Hi ceromus

For your Edit2: what is your configuration to brought the failover time down to 4 seconds? My RT-AC68U with 378.52_2 firmware with failover default settings also took about 30 seconds, and sometimes either the main WAN port will be disconnected or both port will be disconnected,

Please advise. Thank You.

 

[ceromus]

Hi ceromus

For your Edit2: what is your configuration to brought the failover time down to 4 seconds? My RT-AC68U with 378.52_2 firmware with failover default settings also took about 30 seconds, and sometimes either the main WAN port will be disconnected or both port will be disconnected,

Please advise. Thank You.

Sorry that was for the peplink router that I decided to go with. I was never able to get the RT-AC68U to switch over reliably.