Using The Dude to check routes

RouterOS The Dude
1

Hi Folks

I’m trying to find out if it is possible to use The Dude to check if our internet connection is going via a particular route

Our internet connection is provided using a microwave dish (we’re in the middle of no where and this is the only method of getting anything like a reasonable speed connection) and has an automatic ADSL fail over in the event of problems with the dish

Our ISP is pretty good when it comes to contacting us if they notice we are running on the backup connection but that means we are being reactive to any connection problems and it would be nice if we were able to detect when we’ve dropped onto the backup connection ourselves

Having spoken to our ISP the only method we have of identifying whether we are on our primary or backup connection is to do a tracert to an external address (any external address) and check the IP address of the second hop, if it ends in .10 we’re on the primary whilst .140 is the backup

Is there anyway to get The Dude to monitor our connection and notify us if it sees that we are going out via the .140 route?

Regards

Alan
MotivAction

2

Hi, MotivAction
Probably, you can do it using ICMP probe.
To see if it possible and to help you to make probe I have to look at tracert to .10 and .140 from your dude server when you are on main link. You can strip first 2 digits of IP addresses showing in tracert, I just need to know hopcount.

3

Hi MotivAction,

Just a quick question.. (maybe more than one..)

How is everything connected at your place?
I assume you’ve got the dish and the ADSL connected to one and the same router with DUAL WAN abilities?
If yes, then maybe it’s (timeconsuming but) worth digging thru the MIB of the router in search of something that sounds like ‘Active WAN/Uplink’.
Then you could create a function/probe or whatever to notify you when one went down and the other comes up.
You might expect from (high end) stuff to have an OID displaying your current way out to the bad wide world..

Take a shot at it, if you’ve got questions, feel free to ask the guys here.

Regards,
Minollie