RB2011 and degraded Internet speed

[globalmedia]

Dear all,

I would like to know if there is a different approach to implementing dynamic load balance without mangle using two wan ports (wan1-pppoe/wan2-dhcp). I checked some: using pcc, nth, etc. All them using mangle. Why am I asking? Because I have 500mb in wan1 and 300mb in wan2, but when I configure the mangle to load balance, my first connection speed (wan1) drops to less than half approximately without fasttrack. With fasttrack I am able to get the full speed from the wan1. But with fasttrack only, the wan2 is basically idle all the time just waiting for a failover condition. How can I use both wans, with fasttrack enabled and dynamic routing the traffic with load balance, but without mangle? I see that mangle is not compatible with fasttrack because fasttrack bypass mangle rules. I have tried to enable both to see what happens… the connection drops to kbps and stays extremely slow.

I just realize now that RB2011 is very limited for connections above 200mb. It is worth mentioning that my network is very small with only 5 devices and I bought this device just to have a load balance + failover feature. In other words, who dropped was me!

I am using the latest version of RouteOS (7..

That is it. Hope someone can share some different experience using those features. Thanks.

[anav]

Getting a modern router with horsepower is certainly recommended.
Unaware of any method to avoid mangling in this case.

[Amm0]

You could try ECMP. While that mean “equal cost” load balancing, you use >2 default route to essentially make it un-equal. You could can do that by adding 8 default routes here, all with the same distance (which is what makes a route ECMP): 3 for the 300MBs link, 5 for the 500MBs. NAT will track forwarded connections fine without manage. There are side-effects without marking connection, specifically input chain. Likely avoidable with /ip/routing/rules depending on needs. But if the goal is keep fast-track that might be an approach.

Rolling back to V6 may another thing worth trying too. V7 is likely slightly heavier, and the RB2011 doesn’t have a lot of spare CPU.

[globalmedia]

Getting a modern router with horsepower is certainly recommended.
Unaware of any method to avoid mangling in this case.

I am thinking about it. The only similar device is the 4011 with wireless.

[globalmedia]

Thank you so much. I will read about ECMP. What are the side-effects without marking connection from mangle? Could you give me an example and how to fix it with routing rules?
Sincerely

You could try ECMP. While that mean “equal cost” load balancing, you use >2 default route to essentially make it un-equal. You could can do that by adding 8 default routes here, all with the same distance (which is what makes a route ECMP): 3 for the 300MBs link, 5 for the 500MBs. NAT will track forwarded connections fine without manage. There are side-effects without marking connection, specifically input chain. Likely avoidable with /ip/routing/rules depending on needs. But if the goal is keep fast-track that might be an approach.

Rolling back to V6 may another thing worth trying too. V7 is likely slightly heavier, and the RB2011 doesn’t have a lot of spare CPU.

[globalmedia]

Unfortunately ECMP also uses the mangle:

/ ip firewall mangle
add chain=input in-interface=wlan1 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=wlan1_conn
add chain=input in-interface=wlan2 action=mark-connection new-connection-mark=wlan2_conn
add chain=output connection-mark=wlan1_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_wlan1     
add chain=output connection-mark=wlan2_conn action=mark-routing new-routing-mark=to_wlan2

That was extracted from wiki examples.

You could try ECMP. While that mean “equal cost” load balancing, you use >2 default route to essentially make it un-equal. You could can do that by adding 8 default routes here, all with the same distance (which is what makes a route ECMP): 3 for the 300MBs link, 5 for the 500MBs. NAT will track forwarded connections fine without manage. There are side-effects without marking connection, specifically input chain. Likely avoidable with /ip/routing/rules depending on needs. But if the goal is keep fast-track that might be an approach.

Rolling back to V6 may another thing worth trying too. V7 is likely slightly heavier, and the RB2011 doesn’t have a lot of spare CPU.

[Amm0]

The LAN forward traffic should be tracked by connection tracking – so that’s what remembers what WAN it went out, and “remembered” as an established connection. Those are the ones that should not need managing.

So if all your traffic is forward form LAN to one of WAN, my thought is mangle isn’t needed.

But “input” traffic to router won’t remember the WAN it come in on here, since outbound part goes through the ECMP selection, and could go out the wrong WAN. So if you have any /ip/services open to WAN, you need those mangled. Similar with port forwarding. So perhaps you mark just those?

[anav]

Why would you replace a router with a wifi router, the 4011 has a WIRED only version and better anyway for the same price point is the RB5009?

[globalmedia]

I am referring to this one… Checkout the RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD-IN

Why would you replace a router with a wifi router, the 4011 has a WIRED only version and better anyway for the same price point is the RB5009?

[Znevna]

RB2011 is ~12 years old by now, what do you expect from it?