[K12OSN] OT: Using multiple DSL connections

[Rob Asher]

I'd look at load balancing the two DSL connections using something like Mikrotik: http://www.mikrotik.com/  You could do the same with any linux machine but MT just happens to be my weapon of choice.  Also, MT provides for very good QoS for things like VoIP via packet marking/mangle.  Here are couple of things on their wiki that might pertain to what you're wanting to do:
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Load_Balancing_Persistent 

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Two_gateways_failover_with_load_balancing 

HTH,
Rob


-------------------------------------
Rob Asher
Network Systems Technician
Paragould School District
(870)236-7744 Ext. 169


>>> Peter Scheie <peter at scheie.homedns.org> 1/31/2008 8:00 AM >>>
I have a client site where we've installed K12LTSP-5EL with a single gig NIC, 
connected to a switch (which in turn has another switch daisy chained off it via 
gigabit connection).  The clients all have 100Mb connections.  The clients are a 
mix of thins, Windows, and Macs.  They have Vonage phones, which according to my 
reading, each require about 90K of bandwidth.  I think they have 4-6 such phones 
now and anticipate adding more, although I don't know what the upper limit is yet.

Because of the bandwidth requirements of the Vonage phones, and anticipated 
growth in the number of phones, they have installed two DSL lines.  I have not 
had a chance to test the lines to see what kind of bandwidth, up & down, they 
each provide.  As it stands right now, the LTSP server provides DHCP, but points 
to only one of the two DSL bridges as the default gateway.  IOW, at the moment, 
the second DSL line isn't being utilized.

My question is whether anyone has any suggestions about how to 
utilize/share/combine the bandwidth of both DSL lines so that all computers and 
all phones can make use of either/both lines.  I could put the phones onto a 
separate physical network and confine phones to one DSL line and the computers 
to the other, but that seems inefficient and inflexible, and it means they will 
have to make sure they pay attention to which network they plug into (which they 
won't understand and therefore will do incorrectly).  Depending on the time of 
day, computer traffic will decline as phone traffic increases, and vice-versa, 
although the nature of their respective traffic patterns is different (i.e., 
computer traffic tends to be bursty).  What I'd really like is to setup a 
dedicated linux box to act as the gateway for the network, put three NICs in it, 
one for the internal network and one for each DSL line, and have it load 
balance/round robin the traffic between the DSL lines.  Any suggestions?

Peter

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