LARTC - Apr 2004 - Load-balancing with multipath routes (1 NIC + 2 GWs)

Greetings,

I''m trying to set up some sort of load-balancing on a Linux (Trustix)
gateway by using multipath routes, however I''m stuck with some
problems.

The idea is that this gateway (odd as it may seem) only has one external
interface, which should route packets to two different gateways (Ciscos).
The gateway''s external interface and the routers are all on the same
network, so this is a slightly different set up than the one described
in Linux Adv Routing HOWTO.

I successfully defined the multipath route, with two equal cost routes.
However, it doesnt matter how much traffic I generate on the gateway
(using many simultaneous wgets in mirror mode), it doesnt seem to distribute
the load among the two gateways, always using only one of them. I tried
both using and not using equalize, with the same result. I was carefull
to flush the route cache between each attempt.

Has anyone tried a similar setup (single interface + two gateways)? Is
this the proper way of doing such set up? Considering both routers are
on the same network of the gateway''s external ínterface (and I cannot
change that), would there be any other alternative? Would I absolutely
need Julian Anastasov''s patches for that matter?

Here''s how my routing table looks like (IPs changed to protect the
innocent):

js@virtual ~$ ip route show
200.X.Y.0/24 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 200.X.Y.1 
127.0.0.0/8 dev lo  scope link 
default 
        nexthop via 200.X.Y.2  dev eth0 weight 1
        nexthop via 200.X.Y.3  dev eth0 weight 1
js@virtual ~$

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
John Sinclair



Concerned about your privacy? Follow this link to get
FREE encrypted email: https://www.hushmail.com/?l=2

Free, ultra-private instant messaging with Hush Messenger
https://www.hushmail.com/services.php?subloc=messenger&l=434

Promote security and make money with the Hushmail Affiliate Program: 
https://www.hushmail.com/about.php?subloc=affiliate&l=427
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/