Load balancing on multi WAN with same gateway address

[plasticWan]

Hello,

I followed this tutorial (http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi_WAN_/_Load_Balancing) to setup the load balancer on a pfSense 1.2.3-RC1. I'm trying to balance 5 cable WANs, but I'm doing it with only 2 at the moment for testing.

The problem is my ISP provided me with the worst piece of router you could imagine for each WAN, and this s*** only allows subnet on 192.168.0.0/24 ("192.168.0" is hard written in the config panel). Moreover, the subnet bit count cannot be set, only the DHCP start and addresses count may be set. :-\

I can't see how to set the gateway address either, which makes me think it's just impossible. So the trick is how to set 5 WANs, with 5 monitor IPs in a load balancing pool when all WANs have the gateway 192.168.0.1 ? ???

The result (for now) is that all requests always go through the same WAN, the first. Any idea of how I could fix this ?

[chpalmer]

Who is your ISP?

What modem are you using?  Separate modem and router or "Cable Gateway"?

[plasticWan]

It is a french ISP : Numericable

And I guess the modems are what you call "cable gateways"
The brand is "CASTELNET" and I can't find any docs…

[chpalmer]

I only found this

http://www.micro-astuce.com/Forum/topic3459.html

Its not related but helps me to know that your modem is also a router.

Problem is that all your WAN ports are pointed at the same "Gateway Address".  The "Load Balancer" wont work with that.

What I would suggest, is to see if your ISP would let you use a simple bridge modem. Then they would need to give you IP addresses with different gateway addresses.  My ISP here will do that…  Yours may not.  Then a simple switch between your modem and your pfSense box. Then set up your wan ports with your public ip addresses.

This config may not get you much however unless your trying to get by their use limits.

[chpalmer]

http://www.castlenet.com.tw/

Heres their website

[plasticWan]

Thank you for your replies !

Regarding your second link my router seems to be a CBW560, but still no doc.

So yes it is a router, and I don't think I can make it work in bridge mode to configure my public IPs in pfSense. But your first lik shows how to set the gateway address in the router config.

So setting the gateway address and IP count I think I could go along with this config :

WAN
Gateway: 192.168.0.32/27
DHCP: 192.168.0.33 - 192.168.0.63

WAN2
Gateway: 192.168.0.64/27
DHCP: 192.168.0.65 - 192.168.0.95

WAN3
Gateway: 192.168.0.96/27
DHCP: 192.168.0.97 - 192.168.0.127

WAN4
Gateway: 192.168.0.128/27
DHCP: 192.168.0.129 - 192.168.0.159

WAN5
Gateway: 192.168.0.160/27
DHCP: 192.168.0.161 - 192.168.0.191

If I can configure this properly with those crappy routers, I guess it should work. Shouldn't it ?  :-
I'm gonna try this and post the answer when/if I find it.

[chpalmer]

Nice.  ;D

Let us know if it works…    :)

[plasticWan]

So…

I checked this out it occurred that the IP of the router cannot be changed.
After a quick call to my ISP, I learned that the routers have some kind of "super admin mode" (or mega-supra-giga-mode, since it ables to change the router's address :o).

Moreover, with this mode, I've been able to put my 5 routers in bridge mode, so pfSense get 5 public IPs, which is more comfortable. The interfaces are connected with DHCP but two of them get the same gateway, so it's still a problem, but the other 4 work fine.

But now all request go through interface 2, so load balancing doesn't seem to be working still...

[plasticWan]

End of story :

Now my 5 WAN balance like a charm. All I had to do is to remove the default rule on the WAN firewall…
Maybe a good thing to a in tutorials.