Multi-Wan monitor IP? -with ISP problems
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There are a lot of little comments in other posts about what IP to pick for monitoring on a multi wan setup, however i'm having ISP problems leaving me at a loss.
I don't think it matters for this problem, but here is my setup in a nutshell: Pfsense 1.2 release, pc hd install, home use equipment (compaq evo 510 cmt, p4 2.4, 256meg ram, running 5 $10 trendnet 10/100/1000 cards). Connected to 4 Actiontech M1000 modem/routers (qwest standard specials), and all bringing in dsl from qwest. The modems DHCP to the pfsense box on 192.168.7.0/24, 192.168.8.0/24, 192.168.9.0/24, and 192.168.10.0/24, the pfsense box dhcps the lan on 192.168.1.0/24. Out bound is load balanced, also using a failover gateway for the usual problem children with load balancing. Four different DNS servers are used as the monitor IPs. This whole setup worked for a while-
So… The long and short of the problem is that I am having DSL problems not associated with my side of the setup. Different modems are going down/connecting at an extraordinarily low rate, losing packets, etc. Combined with problems with the monitor IPs not always returning the ping before the connection shuts off on interfaces that are working correctly. And even sometimes marking it good even if the rest of the world is inaccessible. If the DSL wasn't having problems, I would just shoot the ping at the modems and it would be acceptable, if I could get a monitor IP that would return every time the internet was working and never when it wasn't then pfsense would handle the disabling of bad interfaces for me, and that would be acceptable.
In my situation the DNS server as monitor IP sucks, and I'm not really sure why. I know the real solution to this problem is to get different sources of internet, but this setup is for a non profit company and there is no cable access to the building. So we are working on it but stuck with four DSL lines for now.