FreeBSD router two DSL connections

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Danial Thom
>Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 7:48 AM
>To: danial_thom at yahoo.com; Yance Kowara; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: RE: FreeBSD router two DSL connections
>
>
>
>
>--- Danial Thom <danial_thom at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> 
>> 
>> --- Yance Kowara <yance_kowara at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> > > Ted, you have to think outside the box.
>> Life
>> > is
>> > > more than one connection. While you can't
>> > > increase the throughput of a single
>> > connection,
>> > > you can increase the throughput of your
>> > network,
>> > > which is usually the point. "Throughput" in
>> > this
>> > > context is "capacity". Throughput is not
>> only
>> > > what you can "get" on a download; its the
>> sum
>> > > total of all of your activites.
>> > > 
>> > > You "can" upload at 2Mb/s on one connection
>> > if
>> > > you balance your outbound traffic, but not
>> > > download, because while you can control
>> where
>> > > outgoing packets are sent,  you can't
>> control
>> > > over which pipe incoming traffic arrives.
>> > > 
>> > > Believe me, ted. It works. Its not
>> "theory".
>> > Its
>> > > being done. For example a hosting ISP
>> > saturates
>> > > its pipes outgoing and has very little
>> > traffic
>> > > incoming. They can load balance in the
>> > outgoing
>> > > only direction and have all of their
>> incoming
>> > > traffic on a single pipe and double the
>> > capacity
>> > > of their network. Since they never exceed
>> the
>> > > incoming bandwidth of a single pipe there
>> is
>> > no
>> > > need to balance it.
>> > > 
>> > > DT
>> > > 
>> > 
>> > Ted and Daniel,
>> > 
>> > I am still following this thread and am
>> getting
>> > all
>> > confused here. 
>> > 
>> > Back to my original question: 2 ADSL uplinks
>> -
>> > 2
>> > different ISPs.... can they be merged? (Load
>> > balanced,
>> > load shared, whatever it is)
>> > 
>> > OpenBSD's PF has something that looks
>> > promising:
>> >
>>
>http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/pools.html#outgoing
>> > Is this what I am looking for?
>> > 
>> > Kind regards,
>> > 
>> > 
>> > Yance Kowara
>> 
>> "merged" is not the correct word. You cannot
>> change how your traffic comes in (ie from which
>> ISP it arrives). You can use various techniques
>> (source routing, static routing tables, load
>> balancing) to increase your outgoing capacity. 
>> 
>> What you should be discussing is how you can
>> use
>> each of these techniques within a FreeBSd
>> environment. Unfortunately we have to teach Ted
>> how routing works in the meantime, which
>> muddles
>> the issue.
>> 
>> DT
>
>As an example, I had a customer that had a T1 and
>a T3 connection to different ISPs (they kept the
>T1 because of the IPs they didn't want to
>relinquish, and as a backup), and BGP worked on
>hops at the time so clearly that doesnt work when
>you have unbalanced pipes, because arguable the
>T3 is always the "better" route).

More baloney.  The better route with BGP is the route
with fewer AS hops not the one that goes out the
biggest pipe.

It is quite possible to have a T1 to a backbone that
is very well connected (ie: uunet) and a DS3 to a
backbone that is poorly connected (ie: Wiltel) and have
all the inbound and outbound traffic favor the T1

Ted