FreeBSD router two DSL connections

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Danial Thom [mailto:danial_thom at yahoo.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 9:56 AM
>To: Loren M. Lang; Ted Mittelstaedt
>Cc: Yance Kowara; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: Re: FreeBSD router two DSL connections
>
>
>All upstream ISPs are
>connected to everyone on the internet, so it
>doesn't matter which you send your packets to
>(the entire point of a "connectionless" network.
>They both can forward your traffic to wherever
>its going.

They aren't going to forward your traffic unless
it's sourced by an IP number they assign.  To
do otherwise means they would permit you to spoof IP
numbers.  And while it's possible some very small
ISP's run by idiots that don't know any better might
still permit this, their feeds certainly will not.

>For efficiencies sake, you may argue
>that sending to the ISP that sent you the traffic
>will be a "better path", but if one of your pipes
>is saturated and the other running at 20% 

letsseenow, these are full duplex 'pipes', can
we have some direction this saturation is taking
place in?  I mean, since you are at least trying to
make a senseless explanation sound right, you might
as well try a bit harder.

>then
>its likely more efficient to keep your pipes
>filled and send to "either" isp. You can achieve
>this with per-packet load-balancing with ciscos,

per packet load balancing is for parallel links
between 2 endpoints.  Not three, as in you,
your first ISP, and your second ISP.

Surprising you would drag up a Ciscoism as
your such a big fan of BSD-based routers.

>or bit-balancing with a product like ETs for
>FreeBSD. Unless your 2 isps are connected
>substantially differently (say if one is in
>Europe and one in the US),  you'll do better
>keeping your pipes balanced, as YOU are the
>bottleneck, not the upstream, assuming you have
>quality upstream providers.
>

Sometimes you run into someone who is so ignorant
of the subject of which he is trying to speak,
 - routing in this case - that you can't even
argue with the person.  Kind of like trying to
explain the concept of the fossil record to a
creationist.  This is one of these times.

Ted