Routing configuration
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We have two broadband routers providing internet connections for our office. How do I setup my gateways on the our office nodes (XP Pro), so that we can access internet even when one fails. The problem is that since these routers are always available, but their internet links may fail at times. Therefore, if I have the first router as my gateway, and its internet link fails, I cannot connect to the internet. This despite that I have a second gateway configured on my PC pointing to the second router. From what I have found, Windows passes on my requests to the first gateway as it is available, which cannot locate the server I am trying to connect, because its link is down. Hence, my connection fails. So, how can I setup a routing configuration such that my PC can transparently switch over to the second router when the first one's internet link goes down? Also, how can I implement some kind of load balancing, so that some nodes are routed thru router#1 and some thru router#2 when both are available? Thanks!
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We have two broadband routers providing internet connections for our office. How do I setup my gateways on the our office nodes (XP Pro), so that we can access internet even when one fails. The problem is that since these routers are always available, but their internet links may fail at times. Therefore, if I have the first router as my gateway, and its internet link fails, I cannot connect to the internet. This despite that I have a second gateway configured on my PC pointing to the second router. From what I have found, Windows passes on my requests to the first gateway as it is available, which cannot locate the server I am trying to connect, because its link is down. Hence, my connection fails. So, how can I setup a routing configuration such that my PC can transparently switch over to the second router when the first one's internet link goes down? Also, how can I implement some kind of load balancing, so that some nodes are routed thru router#1 and some thru router#2 when both are available? Thanks!
Hello! First you need some basic routing skills for you to solve this. You should place the routers within the same network, then add routes with equal metrics, therefore if one link goes down, the routers should communicate with each other so that they pass traffic to the available gateway (in Cisco routers, CDP does this-it updates neighbouring routers of the status of one another). For eg if you have router a and b, incase router a is down, router a will receive traffic from the client pcs and since its status is down it will route traffic to router b, it knows the status of b, up. When both links are up, you can use static routes to direct traffic to the interfaces on your routers depending on the size of your network. This can balance your load.
--------------------------- Both optimists and pessimists are important in technology. The optimist invented the aeroplane; the pessimist invented the parachute. Regards, Hesbon Ongira Nairobi, Kenya.