Load balance or daisy chain routers?

RouterOS General
1

Hi all, I have a RB1100 13 port router…I currently use port 1 for my LAN and the remaining ports for WAN, I have PCC balancing over my WAN’s. Obviously I now cannot add any further WAN links, is there a way to link two routers RB1100 routers so they both respond on 1 LAN gateway IP address? I don’t believe it’s possible so then what would be my options seeing as I cannot buy a router with more ports…

2

You can try to add manageable switch or bridging device and use vlans like internal ports.

3

You don’t need to use just one LAN address.

Connect the second router to your existing one (you’ll have to move one WAN to the new one).

Assign a private /30 for that link. That ether on router 1 will be a new “WAN” that goes to router 2.

Setup multiple WANs on the new one (router 2).

A shortcoming is you’ll cannot shape Bandwidth globally as router 1 won’t be aware of bandwidth usage on router 2, but you could set that “WAN” to the sum of available bandwidth of all WANs on router 2, or use those for incoming services, etc.

4

Thanks Pukkita,

So I would route over the /30 subnet to the second router(no NAT), but if I have 10 WANS balanced with PCC on router 1 and another 3 WAN’s with PCC on router 2, would it still work? I guess I must change the “weight” so that more connection go out the new WAN on router 1? I take it I cannot NAT from router 1 connection to router 2 if I want PCC to work correctly on rotuer 2 right?

I don’t do any bandwidth shaping.

5

that’s it.

I take it I cannot NAT from router 1 connection to router 2 if I want PCC to work correctly on rotuer 2 right?

I don’t do any bandwidth shaping.

You shouldn’t. PCC itself would work correctly but all connections will appear to router2 as coming from router1 and the PCC classifier (guess you’re using both src and dst addresses) would be “fooled” so the connection “distribution” won’t do what you want.

6

Thanks Pukkita for the helpful answer.