[Q] CakeQOS with Dual WAN Load Balancing Possible?

[sputnikk]

Hi all,

I've done some searching but can't seem to find a definitive answer for the theoretics or the problems I'm running into.

I have a stable setup with Dual WAN Load Balancing in place on an AX56U. Good broadband is hard to come by here.

Dual WAN is composed of:

1x Drop into Bridged DSL Modem provided by my ISP. ASUS is doing PPPoE. (Primary) I *assume* its ADSL or at least, can't be VDSL, because I have POTS/CAT3 telephone line as my telco drop from the ISP.
1x Drop into a 4G router with a roof antenna where the ASUS is a simple LAN client. (Secondary)

I can clearly see a speed increase on multi stream downloads and I even have scripts that force my OpenVPN to work over a specific WAN endpoint, courtesy of this forum.

I now wanted to slap CakeQOS on top of that, but anytime I install it - my primary WAN goes down. CakeQOS always reports "not running".

No seeming errors in syslog. I've tried various iterations of "raw/ethernet/ether-vlan/pppoe-atm" in both upload and download and the only one that stays up is my secondary WAN. The primary PPPoE based one, reports PADO timeouts and pppd never completes.

Am I dumb? Is this expected? Do I not get to bask in QoS because of load balancing?

 

[dave14305]

If you’re willing to edit the cake script for your specific situation, try editing this line:

iface="$(nvram get wan0_ifname)"

to read:

iface="$(nvram get wan0_pppoe_ifname)"

It might work, at least on the primary interface. No promises.

 

[sputnikk]

If you’re willing to edit the cake script for your specific situation, try editing this line:

iface="$(nvram get wan0_ifname)"

to read:

iface="$(nvram get wan0_pppoe_ifname)"

It might work, at least on the primary interface. No promises.

My secondary WAN remained up, I was able to browse the web. But CakeQoS still reported as not running.

Without promises, and within the confines of "might work" - by "might work at least on the primary interface", do you mean that while it might stay up - CakeQoS will only ever work its magic with bandwidth provided by the Primary WAN interface? (Essentially bypassing my load balancing then)

I'll give this a shot though. Thanks. All we appear to be doing here is manually specifying where we are going to source our interface name from when querying nvram? I guess ASUS differentiates their name if its pppoe enabled? Is the conclusion then, that CakeQoS for Merlin does not support PPPoE out of the box?


Edit: also a follow up question, does Dual WAN Load balancing present a problem for any other QoS implement, such as FlexQoS?

 

[dave14305]

do you mean that while it might stay up - CakeQoS will only ever work its magic with bandwidth provided by the Primary WAN interface? (Essentially bypassing my load balancing then)

As it’s written today, yes that’s true. Nothing would stop you from trying to add cake to the other interface manually as an experiment.

Is the conclusion then, that CakeQoS for Merlin does not support PPPoE out of the box?

It’s a hypothesis at this point.

does Dual WAN Load balancing present a problem for any other QoS implement, such as FlexQoS?

You would need to test regular Adaptive QoS in your setup to see if it works on both interfaces. If ASUS doesn’t support it, there wouldn’t be much FlexQoS could do to circumvent that.

 

[sputnikk]

Understood. Thanks for your reply.

Stock QoS (Adaptive QoS) does a sanity check before turning on and asks you to switch DualWAN to failover mode, so I think the answer is self evident. If I want load balancing, I don't get QoS is the simple answer - I just figured I'd ask a guy with FlexQoS in his sig while I have him

 

[fearz]

Understood. Thanks for your reply.

Stock QoS (Adaptive QoS) does a sanity check before turning on and asks you to switch DualWAN to failover mode, so I think the answer is self evident. If I want load balancing, I don't get QoS is the simple answer - I just figured I'd ask a guy with FlexQoS in his sig while I have him

Did you manage to get QOS with Dual WAN Load-balancing?

 

[sfx2000]

Not sure where things are with the script writers are, but there has been efforts related to 5G work where bandwidth is variable and SQM auto-rating...

The challenge with Dual-WAN is the interfaces themselves and the characteristics around them - one might be fiber, and the other could be 5G-FWA or Satellite, where things can vary quite a bit.