Linksys RV082 Load Balancing and VPN

jamieklima · ‎02-22-2010

We have 3 offices connected by VPN and are currently using RV082 routers for the endpoints. The 2 branch offices have service from a small wireless ISP in the area. We have recently brought DSL in to the main office in addition to the wireless ISP. There are about 20 workstations in the main office, and 2-5 in each of the other offices.

Right now we have the RV082 at the main office configured to use the DSL as the primary service and fail over to the wireless ISP in event of issues with the DSL. What we would like to do now is have load balancing for the main office and have the VPN endpoints run specifically on the wireless ISP (much lower latency than going through the DSL), failing over to the DSL when required. The ideal situation would allow us to specify traffic (ie - web, and email) for a 'preferred' WAN port so that it uses, for example the DSL circuit for email traffic until the DSL circuit goes down, then email traffic is automatically moved over.

I know that you can set rules in the load balancing configuration of the RV082 to direct traffic out a specific port. When I have configured these in the past for testing, the rules were not removed when the connection failed over, so any traffic that had a rule configured for the failed port stopped working.

All of the routers are running firmware version 2.0.0.19-tm.

I'm sorry if this is a scenario that has been addressed before, but I haven't been able to find any answers. If I missed it, please feel free to point me in the right direction. Is it possible to configure the load balancing rules so that they fail over correctly on the RV082? If so, please post steps for me to follow if you can. If this is not possible on the RV082, please make suggestions for which router we should install at the main office to make this scenario work properly.

Thanks for any help!

Te-Kai Liu · ‎02-22-2010

With Smartlink Backup, when the primary WAN is down, all traffic that is bound to the primary WAN is redirected to the Backup WAN. If this is not happening on your RV082, please contact the Small Business Support Center.

jamieklima · ‎02-23-2010

Thank you for the quick response. Perhaps I didn't explain the situation very well in my first post. We are currently using the Smartlink Backup functionality, and it is working correctly.

We would like to move to the Load Balance mode, because this will allow us to take better advantage of having two providers. The Auto Load Balance works fine except for certain sites, like a banking site. I understand that the way around this is to create a Protocol Binding rule, but is there a way to have Protocol Binding rules termporarily removed or modified in the event of a WAN failure, so that traffic will not get stuck being sent out to a service provider that is down? I have tested the Load Balance feature and created some Protocol Binding rules as a test. For example, I bound all HTTP (port 80) traffic to WAN1, then unplugged WAN1 to simulate an outage. All HTTP traffic stopped working after I unplugged WAN1, but all other traffic seamlessly continued to function as if nothing had changed.

Thanks!

Darren DeCroock · ‎02-23-2010

Unfortunately, there is not a way for the protocol bindings to automatically switch to the other WAN port in the event of a failure. If you have protocol bindings directing traffic out a specific port, and that WAN fails, the only way to get those services back up would be to manually adjust the protocol settings.

I know that is probably not what you wanted to hear, but there is no failover for the bindings on this router.

Thank you,

Darren

jamieklima · ‎02-23-2010

Thank you for the information. You're right, that's not what I wanted to hear, but that's okay. Can you make any suggestions for a router that would have this capability?

Thanks again!

Jamie

Te-Kai Liu · ‎02-23-2010

With load balancing and protocol binding, once a WAN port goes down, the applications bound to that WAN port will be re-directed to the other WAN since the routing rules for protocol binding have been cleared. The router will handle the traffic as if there is only one WAN port configured.

Given your description, we would like to better understand your test environment and applications.

sreejithharidaspni · ‎09-21-2015

How to configure load balancing in RV082