Multi Isp (wan) Router?

[niller74]

Seen from a tech point of view it looks like there is a huge market for this. Anyone have experience with any of the Thai players?

It would be interesting, since it's not uncommon to see the DSL link disapear or the node being reset 10+ times a day. Having a Multi ISP router would be a 'cheap' solution to prevent the majority of these link drops.

Furthermore it would be a better way to scale your bandwidth (I know it's not true bandwidth scaling) than upgrade your connection, since you seldom get the extra bandwidth you actually pay for.

It should be fairly easy to build a cheap, embedded, low power (~5W) device that could handle this.

Any thoughts?

[seancbk]

Seen from a tech point of view it looks like there is a huge market for this. Anyone have experience with any of the Thai players?

It would be interesting, since it's not uncommon to see the DSL link disapear or the node being reset 10+ times a day. Having a Multi ISP router would be a 'cheap' solution to prevent the majority of these link drops.

Furthermore it would be a better way to scale your bandwidth (I know it's not true bandwidth scaling) than upgrade your connection, since you seldom get the extra bandwidth you actually pay for.

It should be fairly easy to build a cheap, embedded, low power (~5W) device that could handle this.

Any thoughts?

What you are looking for is a Load Balancing Router

http://www.peplink.com/solutions/internet-load-balancing/

Sean

[Crushdepth]

Cool...any idea where to get one, and ballpark how much they are?

[stumonster]

that would be a cheap way to get a fat upstream connection - 3 x 512 = 1536

[niller74]

I will build one over the next few days. Based on some embedded hardware and a Gentoo linux. Will let you know how it perform. Currently I have a similar setup running on a traditional PC though. With some minor hacks it should port to the other hardware.

The reason I posted it was more to get a feel if people in Thailand would appreciate such service. I have checked the prices on the PepLink and there are lots of alternative hardware vendors that can provide similar setup for less than half the price. With the right software on it, I'm fairly sure it would be just as good as existing commercial products.

[Guest Reimar]

that would be a cheap way to get a fat upstream connection - 3 x 512 = 1536

Looks like you kidding! In Thailand?

[monty]

You can buy load balancing routers, think the cheapest is a d-link model of around 5-6000 Baht.

You can also make one yourself out of an old PC. A PII or celerom 500 mHz, 128 mb ram, hard disk, on board LAN and two additional LAN cards will do the trick.

Should be able to buy at less then 3000 Baht.

Then install PF SENSE on it (freeware).

Very powerful routing, QOS, firewall, and of course load balancing/fail over of several broadband sources.

Can also be installed on the following platform: alix2c1

Costs around 4000 Baht in Europe, you'll need a compact flash card to install the pfsense on....

[ignis]

Cool...any idea where to get one, and ballpark how much they are?

Last time I looked they were about 5,000 baht at Pantip2 [Nontaburi]

[Naam]

Cool...any idea where to get one, and ballpark how much they are?

Last time I looked they were about 5,000 baht at Pantip2 [Nontaburi]

3,400 Baht at Wattana's in Pattaya. would like to buy and install one but fear that i lack the technical knowledge. have TOT and Maxnet on different phone lines and modem/routers.

anybody willing to assist in exchange for a dinner and a good bottle of wine? if yes please PM me

Edited July 6, 2008 by Naam

[JSixpack]

Interesting. I hope whoever sets up one of these will report back on the actual throughput.

[niller74]

I can add that I have had a system (standard PC) running for more than 8 months with less than 1 min. unscheduled downtime. Of course there is nothing I can do to longer power failures. Most of the time I have been running a TOT/CAT setup, but just recently added a TT&T connection. This give me a VERY theoretical bandwith like (7000 down/1500 up), if I use software that can fork the bandwidth usage over multiple connections. Furthermore it give me added stability in case one of the connections fail, which happens 10+ times a day, but it is transparent to the user.

There are several reasons why a standard PC isn't optimal for this solution.

1. Noisy - we all know how much noice an old PC can make. It is annoying for a box that is switched on permanently.

2. Stability - having mechanical moving parts like fans, harddisks etc. make the system more likely to fail or overheat.

3. Power - eventhough the electricity in Thailand isn't that expensive, we still have the environmental issue.

Why have an embedded system?

Completely silent since there are no fans or disks spinning.

Hardware is very stable due the the point mentioned above.

Instead of having a standard PC use ~300W you can get a tiny embedded system that will be just as good and only use ~5W.

By the end of next week I can write more in detail what my experience is with the embedded setup, but I expect it to be very similar to the setup I already have with the differences mentioned in this post.

[jhunter]

I have a business with about 25 people using Internet - which goes on and off constantly. Thai ISP's don't care whether they provide uninterrupted service or not....... Can you solve my problem?

Thanks

Seen from a tech point of view it looks like there is a huge market for this. Anyone have experience with any of the Thai players?

It would be interesting, since it's not uncommon to see the DSL link disapear or the node being reset 10+ times a day. Having a Multi ISP router would be a 'cheap' solution to prevent the majority of these link drops.

Furthermore it would be a better way to scale your bandwidth (I know it's not true bandwidth scaling) than upgrade your connection, since you seldom get the extra bandwidth you actually pay for.

It should be fairly easy to build a cheap, embedded, low power (~5W) device that could handle this.

Any thoughts?

[monty]

I have a business with about 25 people using Internet - which goes on and off constantly. Thai ISP's don't care whether they provide uninterrupted service or not....... Can you solve my problem?

Thanks

Best thing to do is get a second broadband connection, preferably through a different phone company/ISP.

Then plug both broadband modems in following device:

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/19165/

Only when both your broadband connections are down simultaneously you will lose connection...

[niller74]

I have tried pfSense and it is definitely a good product. It does however have quite a few problems one of the more annoying is that it only support one pppoe connection. Yes, I know you can just have your modem do the pap authentication.

It's http admin interface is very nice and it provide fairly good traffic shaping.

[Phil Conners]

I've got a Linksys Dual Wan router (RV042) + 2 matching modems (AM300), all sitting unused in my cupboard. You can have the bundle for 5,000. PM me if interested. I had it working fine with two lines, TT&T and TOT, but there were so many problems with TOT's internet that I found it pointless to keep using it.

[K2K]

Interesting topic ...

I used TOT and TT&T/CSLoxinfo in Phuket but separately - manually plugged in the better one if one failed, and just come accross this load balancing router technology.

Up here in CM I went to iNET and they suggested it ... but the Dual WAN router thay offered (Vigor 2910) is 10k THB - seems a bit steep from the earlier posts.

[niller74]

Interesting topic ...

I used TOT and TT&T/CSLoxinfo in Phuket but separately - manually plugged in the better one if one failed, and just come accross this load balancing router technology.

Up here in CM I went to iNET and they suggested it ... but the Dual WAN router thay offered (Vigor 2910) is 10k THB - seems a bit steep from the earlier posts.

There are several ways of doing this.

1. Buy a router with Dual-Wan capabilities (4500-10000 THB)

2. Take an old PC with at least 3 network interface cards and install software like pfSense (Free-2000 THB)

For professional purpose I would recommend looking at a more sophisticated setup with optional DMZ and support for more than 2 providers. Possibly have a GRPS as the last connection if all other connections are down.

[niller74]

For those of you who expressed interest in my project about building a multi wan router, I can now bring the following news.

The operating system is now running on an embedded platform taking up ~8 MB RAM and using ~12 MB on the Compact Flash card when fully loaded.

It consist of a complete system with firewall, traffic shaping, pppoe and a small webserver.

In the future I might add support for a proxy since this box support SATA 2.5" disks. This will of course make it a little noisy and use more power, but a good proxy could be useful.

The system is just booting, now I have to build a web interface to administrate the device.

Currently it support 3 ISPs or 2 ISPs and 1 DMZ, but it could be upgraded to support up to 7 connection feeds.

The system use just over 3W when booted and running.

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

I've attached a picture for those interested.

Thanks for the interest.

[JSixpack]

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

Great. Let us know. Would also be interested to know about download speeds. Wonder if, say, two 512 is better than one 1 M? Guess not, but considering less downtime, might be worth it.

[dave_boo]

For those of you who expressed interest in my project about building a multi wan router, I can now bring the following news.

Where did you get the embedded board from? I don't fancy bringing one in from the States if they are there at a reasonable price.

The operating system is now running on an embedded platform taking up ~8 MB RAM and using ~12 MB on the Compact Flash card when fully loaded.

Seems a bit of a waste to have shoved a 2GB card in there, but is that running a live-cd(thumbdrive), or the total install? If it's a live-cd, when are you going to install it? And if it's an install; wow!

It consist of a complete system with firewall, traffic shaping, pppoe and a small webserver.

In the future I might add support for a proxy since this box support SATA 2.5" disks. This will of course make it a little noisy and use more power, but a good proxy could be useful.

You could also install an SSD in there and it would be just as quiet as current drive! Prices ARE sloooowly coming down.

The system is just booting, now I have to build a web interface to administrate the device.

Have you thought about simply ssh'ing in and admining it? Or if nothing else use VNC?

Currently it support 3 ISPs or 2 ISPs and 1 DMZ, but it could be upgraded to support up to 7 connection feeds.

The system use just over 3W when booted and running.

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

Keep up the updates; my next project when I get home is going to be a combo MythTV server/media server/pretty much everything you've done with yours. And I really don't relish the idea of leaving my workstation on all the time to perform those functions. Gonna be quite a busy visit!

I've attached a picture for those interested.

Thanks for the interest.

[niller74]

For those of you who expressed interest in my project about building a multi wan router, I can now bring the following news.

Where did you get the embedded board from? I don't fancy bringing one in from the States if they are there at a reasonable price.

The operating system is now running on an embedded platform taking up ~8 MB RAM and using ~12 MB on the Compact Flash card when fully loaded.

Seems a bit of a waste to have shoved a 2GB card in there, but is that running a live-cd(thumbdrive), or the total install? If it's a live-cd, when are you going to install it? And if it's an install; wow!

It consist of a complete system with firewall, traffic shaping, pppoe and a small webserver.

In the future I might add support for a proxy since this box support SATA 2.5" disks. This will of course make it a little noisy and use more power, but a good proxy could be useful.

You could also install an SSD in there and it would be just as quiet as current drive! Prices ARE sloooowly coming down.

The system is just booting, now I have to build a web interface to administrate the device.

Have you thought about simply ssh'ing in and admining it? Or if nothing else use VNC?

Currently it support 3 ISPs or 2 ISPs and 1 DMZ, but it could be upgraded to support up to 7 connection feeds.

The system use just over 3W when booted and running.

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

Keep up the updates; my next project when I get home is going to be a combo MythTV server/media server/pretty much everything you've done with yours. And I really don't relish the idea of leaving my workstation on all the time to perform those functions. Gonna be quite a busy visit!

I've attached a picture for those interested.

Thanks for the interest.

I brought the board from Denmark. It's an AMD Geode - 500 Mhz with 512 MB RAM, but I will try to install the system on a AMD ElanSC520 - 133 MHz with 64 MB RAM, which is a lot cheaper and should be more than enough for my setup.

You might be able to find similar hardware in Bangkok, but not in Chiangmai where I live.

I agree the 2 GB is a bit of a waste, but getting smaller than 2GB SanDisk cards proved to be quite a challenge and the price was the same.

It's a tailored install completely compiled from stage1. As I mentioned earlier the current footprint is ~8 MB RAM and ~12 MB on the flash card. So to answer your question.. It IS an install. Google LFS or Linux From Scratch

Yes, an SSD disk is an option. I am still not quite impressed by its life expectancy.

You can already SSH into it, which is the only way besides the serial console. This device has no frame buffer.

Interesting about your media center. I am designing one based on the LinuxMCE http://www.linuxmce.org/ which I will probably cover in another thread once I have more details on it.

Cheers

[monty]

I too have been looking for those embedded boards and till now haven't found them anywhere in Thailand!

There's lots of them around in Europe/USA, one I've used before (and like) are the wrap series.

Currently out of production and replaced by the model I posted a link from somewhere in my previous post.

I only found models with up to 3 LAN ports though, although I like the mini PCI connector, stick in a mini PCI wireless card and presto, you have a wifi access point as well

That's another thing you can make out of it, wifi access points with built in little radius server...

Although the linksys wrt 54 with proper firmware can do that as well...

Petty there's only 8MB of flash memory in the device, limits possibilities a bit, but otherwise nice with 5 LAN ports and a good wifi card...

[Brew]

http://www.thaiinternetwork.com/products/c...alance%20Router

don't go for the altera/tactio routers.

[niller74]

http://www.thaiinternetwork.com/products/c...alance%20Router

don't go for the altera/tactio routers.

You have any experience with those?

[Brew]

http://www.thaiinternetwork.com/products/c...alance%20Router

don't go for the altera/tactio routers.

You have any experience with those?

I have the 2 WAN model.

I cannot get the IP reservations working, and have sometimes problems with PPPoE connections: connections drop/fail until you restart the device.

On the other side: if you use bit torrent. you can easily increase the tcp-limit of the device through a hidden menu (http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/debug/nat.htm), and their support is very helpful.

[niller74]

Here is a little update.

The new router has now been working for just over a week and it is working as expected. I have only had 30 min downtime the other day when the whole area had a blackout.

The system is fully configurable from SSH, but I am working on a web interface to make the configuration a little easier.

Currently I am only using 2 of the 3 ISP connections (CAT and TOT), but I will try to add a third (TT&T) to check how it handles juggling 3 connections. I would also like to test the overhead on the bandwidth usage. I did some P2P (Bittorrent) the other night and had download speeds of 350+ kb/s. The upload isn't fully tested though.

There are still a ton of tweaks and improvements to be done, but the foundation is definitely there for a reliable connection on an embedded router, with all its advantages.

Thanks for all your interest and PMs regarding this project.

[Prasert]

Nice solution

I'm curious, how does the load-balancing work? E.g. if you open a ftp connection, does the router send the data connection over the same link as the control connection? Same for bittorrent - are the p2p connections sent over the same link as the tracker connections?

And does it support routing protocols?

[nikster]

Wow - this is really cool stuff, thanks for the update.

By proxy do you mean you are going to add a hard disk based cache to the system?

I just use TOT and CAT, switchover is manual

I would consider an off-the-shelf load balancing router if CAT had a terminal on offer, but they don't all they have is a USB modem. Come to think of it, how about adding a USB modem slot to your system?

For those of you who expressed interest in my project about building a multi wan router, I can now bring the following news.

The operating system is now running on an embedded platform taking up ~8 MB RAM and using ~12 MB on the Compact Flash card when fully loaded.

It consist of a complete system with firewall, traffic shaping, pppoe and a small webserver.

In the future I might add support for a proxy since this box support SATA 2.5" disks. This will of course make it a little noisy and use more power, but a good proxy could be useful.

The system is just booting, now I have to build a web interface to administrate the device.

Currently it support 3 ISPs or 2 ISPs and 1 DMZ, but it could be upgraded to support up to 7 connection feeds.

The system use just over 3W when booted and running.

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

I've attached a picture for those interested.

Thanks for the interest.

Edit:I know, technically CAT has a terminal, but it's CDMA 1x which is basically useless. I need EV-DO and they don't have a terminal that can do that.

Edited July 23, 2008 by nikster

[niller74]

Wow - this is really cool stuff, thanks for the update.

By proxy do you mean you are going to add a hard disk based cache to the system?

I just use TOT and CAT, switchover is manual

I would consider an off-the-shelf load balancing router if CAT had a terminal on offer, but they don't all they have is a USB modem. Come to think of it, how about adding a USB modem slot to your system?

For those of you who expressed interest in my project about building a multi wan router, I can now bring the following news.

The operating system is now running on an embedded platform taking up ~8 MB RAM and using ~12 MB on the Compact Flash card when fully loaded.

It consist of a complete system with firewall, traffic shaping, pppoe and a small webserver.

In the future I might add support for a proxy since this box support SATA 2.5" disks. This will of course make it a little noisy and use more power, but a good proxy could be useful.

The system is just booting, now I have to build a web interface to administrate the device.

Currently it support 3 ISPs or 2 ISPs and 1 DMZ, but it could be upgraded to support up to 7 connection feeds.

The system use just over 3W when booted and running.

Over the next week I will be testing the reliability as well as tweaking the performance and probably cut a MB or two off the current footprint.

I've attached a picture for those interested.

Thanks for the interest.

Edit:I know, technically CAT has a terminal, but it's CDMA 1x which is basically useless. I need EV-DO and they don't have a terminal that can do that.

I'm fairly sure I could make my setup work with a USB modem (The box has 1 USB2 port). I'm not quite sure what it is that you require, but what I do is configure the router from all my ISPs to bridge mode and then establish a PPPoE connection from my own router.

EDIT: Yes, the proxy I refer to is a cache proxu solution like Squid or similar.

Edited July 23, 2008 by niller74

[niller74]

Nice solution

I'm curious, how does the load-balancing work? E.g. if you open a ftp connection, does the router send the data connection over the same link as the control connection? Same for bittorrent - are the p2p connections sent over the same link as the tracker connections?

And does it support routing protocols?

The load balancing works on after the round-robin principle. Unless you use 2 connections from the same provider and they support it you will never get true load balancing.

However connections that support forking (pretty much any p2p protocol) will be able to utilize both connections and balance the connection.