Bandwidth load balancing between 2 ISP

thet.zawko · 09-23-2009, 03:49 AM

Hi all

I'm a linux newbee. I need ur help.

Now I have 2 internet connection with 2 ISP. 1 connection is Wireless broadband and the other is ADSL.

I want to combine these 2 connections for getting more bandwidth.

I want to use linux box for that implementation. I want to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 but want to know which distribution is good for this situation.

How could I configure? Give me a peice of advice.

Thanks.

ngiamol · 09-23-2009, 08:51 AM

What you asking is called bonding. Bonding gives the "sum" of 2 or more internet or lan connections. (multiplier of 2)

Lets say that you have 2 adsl 24/1 mbit connections. Bonding can give you one 48/2 connection which also used as redundant

To do that, you need 2 same speed connections of the SAME ISP.
The isp MUST provide you with ONE IP ADDRESS and ONE USERNAME/PASSWORD for both connections. That means that your ISP MUST SUPPORT bonding.

After that, you need a specific router which supports bonding. Cisco and some models of Zyxel can support that.

Regards

chrism01 · 09-23-2009, 09:21 PM

RHEL bonding: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...nterfaces-chan, but as above mentioned, both must be same ISP.

thet.zawko · 09-23-2009, 09:55 PM

Hi ngiamol and christm01

2 ISPs are not the same. Wireless provider give me the static IP address for their link. ADSL provider use DHCP. They use different IP address classes. Both are 512Kbps connections.

I don't wanna user hardware solution like cisco devices because of my budget.

I've read some bonding articles on the Internet. They require to make kernel patch. Is it possible in RHEL distribution. As I'm a linux newbee, I want less effort solution.

My design goal is
-To get more bandwidth and use the internet connections more effectively.
-No need to manually configure on users' pcs to access these links.
-I wanna make sure for high availability. One link goes down, the other is available.

Give me some more advice. Thanks for your kindness.

ngiamol · 09-25-2009, 04:59 AM

Bonding with different ISPs cannot be done. Possibly via a way of tunneling, but not bonding.

If you looking for a way to use more effectively your connections, you can use a router (software or hardware) and separate kind of traffic for each connection.

(example) all http connections will go through isp 1, and all torrent/ftp/other traffic from isp 2.

Regards