Two WAN, one IP

[Mornincupofhate]

So I was wondering, would it be possible to have two connections run into my house, but have a single IP for both of them? Possibly in round robin/failover?

[Oshino Shinobu]

That depends greatly on your ISP. You can have bonded connections that combine multiple lines in and could be used as a form of redundancy in case one line fails. 

 

If your ISP doesn't support and offer bonded connections, then it's not possible from a consumer's end. 

[Mornincupofhate]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

That depends greatly on your ISP. You can have bonded connections that combine multiple lines in and could be used as a form of redundancy in case one line fails. 

 

If your ISP doesn't support and offer bonded connections, then it's not possible from a consumer's end. 

Hmm alright. What if I have two connections with two different IPs. Say one connection goes down and my modem switches over to the other one in failover, and I'm playing a game like battlefield. Will my connection switch over, or will I just be instantly disconnected?

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 minutes ago, Mornincupofhate said:

Hmm alright. What if I have two connections with two different IPs. Say one connection goes down and my modem switches over to the other one in failover, and I'm playing a game like battlefield. Will my connection switch over, or will I just be instantly disconnected?

You may be able to have the connection switch over if you have a modem that supports multiple lines in. If you could, then the switch would definitely not be seamless and you'd most likely be disconnected from the server as your IP changed mid-connection. It would be very much like switching on a VPN connection while playing a game. It requires a new connection to be made to the server, so the sever will treat the new connection as just that, thus terminating your previous connection due to unresponsiveness. 

 

Test turning on a VPN connection mid game and see what happens. That would likely be the same outcome as if you switched IP through your line in mid game. 

[.:MARK:.]

16 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

That depends greatly on your ISP. You can have bonded connections that combine multiple lines in and could be used as a form of redundancy in case one line fails. 

 

If your ISP doesn't support and offer bonded connections, then it's not possible from a consumer's end. 

Not really, he can bond his lines himself manually using an offsite server or some service that provide the same thing.

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

Not really, he can bond his lines himself manually using an offsite server or some service that provide the same thing.

The bonding of lines needs to be done (or at least supported) by the ISP, otherwise they will just see two separate streams of data. He could do load balancing/sharing himself, but not proper bonding. However, the issue then comes that load balancing/sharing, while providing the fail safe, does not give one IP address across two different connections. It does increase bandwidth for multiple data streams, but for a single stream like a game, it doesn't really do anything. 

[Mornincupofhate]

1 minute ago, .:MARK:. said:

Not really, he can bond his lines himself manually using an offsite server or some service that provide the same thing.

So something like 

      / ---------\

Modem  -----  VPN -------- Internet

      \----------/

 

Would this give me the full download speed? (it's supposed to represent 3 connections to my home)

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, Mornincupofhate said:

So something like 

      / ---------\

Modem  -----  VPN -------- Internet

      \----------/

 

Would this give me the full download speed? (it's supposed to represent 3 connections to my home)

No. Without support from your ISP, your download speeds are going to be limited to the fastest single connection available, as they would simply see all three connections as separate, regardless of what you do on your end. However, you would be able to have three full speed downloads going at once, thus increasing your bandwidth. 

[zMeul]

if you have two connections from the same ISP and something fails at the ISP, how's that going to help you!? if the ISP fails, both lines will go down with it

 

what you want is two separate connections from two different ISPs that don't overlap locally (up to a point)

 

there are routers that accept dual WANs, but if they treat the WAN switch seamlessly if one fails, I do not know - maybe even pfsense can do that

[.:MARK:.]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

No. Without support from your ISP, your download speeds are going to be limited to the fastest single connection available, as they would simply see all three connections as separate, regardless of what you do on your end. However, you would be able to have three full speed downloads going at once, thus increasing your bandwidth. 

that is if you load-balance connections, but if you load-balance packets you effectively get a full pipe

[Mornincupofhate]

4 minutes ago, zMeul said:

if you have two connections from the same ISP and something fails at the ISP, how's that going to help you!? if the ISP fails, both lines will go down with it

 

what you want is two separate connections from two different ISPs that don't overlap locally (up to a point)

 

there are routers that accept dual WANs, but if they treat the WAN switch seamlessly if one fails, I do not know - maybe even pfsense can do that

You're forgetting about DDoS. If you're going to say the node will go down with a ddos, no, that's only shitty comcast and their weak af pipes.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, .:MARK:. said:

that is if you load-balance connections, but if you load-balance packets you effectively get a full pipe

True. However, for OP's (theoretical) situation (online game), it can't be used. Not that it's needed for gaming, as it's relatively bandwidth light. 

[zMeul]

Just now, Mornincupofhate said:

You're forgetting about DDoS. If you're going to say the node will go down with a ddos, no, that's only shitty comcast and their weak af pipes.

I wasn't speaking of DDoS, wtf!

and what does comcast has to do with anything!?

[KuJoe]

Multiple connections from the same ISP (which most residential ISPs don't support) will all come from the same source so you won't have any redundancy (like @zMeul said, they'll both fail at the same time). Getting 2 different ISPs setup in your house will offer you redundancy but it won't be a seamless failover (but your internet downtime will go from however long it takes your ISP to fix the problem to a few seconds). At a residential level, you have very little options in terms of redundancy and in those few options none of them offer any sort of seamless failover unless your ISPs will let you run BGP or something similar (good luck with that).

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, Mornincupofhate said:

You're forgetting about DDoS. If you're going to say the node will go down with a ddos, no, that's only shitty comcast and their weak af pipes.

What are you talking about exactly? If you're trying to prepare your home internet for a DDOS attack then you're doing it all wrong.

[.:MARK:.]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

True. However, for OP's (theoretical) situation (online game), it can't be used. Not that it's needed for gaming, as it's relatively bandwidth light. 

To be fair, what OP wanted is just a single IP but using multiple connections, which can be achieved simply with a simple load balance configuration as long as he has a server on the other side of his ISP line (internet). That way a link can go down and all will be good and the IP will be that of the server the whole time.

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, zMeul said:

 

there are routers that accept dual WANs, but if they treat the WAN switch seamlessly if one fails, I do not know - maybe even pfsense can do that

It would likely depend on how the connections were set up. If the ISP is able to offer two connections using the same IP, then one of them just sits dormant until the primary fails, then it is switched. If it's set up like that, the switch may be more or less seamless. That said, it would only defend against physical issues with the cables going from the property to the exchange, which is one of the least likely places to have issues. 

 

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, .:MARK:. said:

To be fair, what OP wanted is just a single IP but using multiple connections, which can be achieved simply with a simple load balance configuration as long as he has a server on the other side of his ISP line (internet). That way a link can go down and all will be good and the IP will be that of the server the whole time.

Yep that can be done. It could be done without using load balancing at all and just have a redundant link there that will take over if the primary fails. If the link to the server fails, then both links to OP go down, so the redundancy is still not great. 

 

Benefits are minimal, not really sure what OP is hoping to gain here. Seems like multiple connections from different ISPs is what he may be looking for. 

[KuJoe]

4 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

To be fair, what OP wanted is just a single IP but using multiple connections, which can be achieved simply with a simple load balance configuration as long as he has a server on the other side of his ISP line (internet). That way a link can go down and all will be good and the IP will be that of the server the whole time.

I see what you're saying, but then he's still at a SPOF with the load balancer. He'll want to find something close by to reduce latency (and preferably in a data center that peers with his ISP) and this will basically eliminate his ability to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc...

 

 

                  

[zMeul]

7 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

That said, it would only defend against physical issues with the cables going from the property to the exchange, which is one of the least likely places to have issues. 

well, I guess you haven't dealt with whole ISP network in city to go down - for maintenance reasons or otherwise

two connections from same ISP protects only if one of the line/cable between the distribution box fails - anything beyond that point with take both lines down

 

I have an ASUS router that accepts dual WAN either via wired ports or one via 3G/4G modem - problem is, the 3G modem is from the same ISP; it will most likely transition seamlessly 

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I see what you're saying, but then he's still at a SPOF with the load balancer. He'll want to find something close by to reduce latency (and preferably in a data center that peers with his ISP) and this will basically eliminate his ability to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc...

                  

It's a possibility, but sure as hell not practical or worth it. In terms of ensuring best chances to retain an active internet connection (not seamless, mind you) is to have a wired connection and a 3G/4G connection available, probably from different ISPs. Little more reasonable IMO, but still not worth it. 

 

I think the solutions suggested are very much "it's possible, in theory". None are really worth it for a normal home network. 

[.:MARK:.]

4 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I see what you're saying, but then he's still at a SPOF with the load balancer. He'll want to find something close by to reduce latency (and preferably in a data center that peers with his ISP) and this will basically eliminate his ability to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc...

 

 

                  

That single point would have to exist anyway

[KuJoe]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

It's a possibility, but sure as hell not practical or worth it. In terms of ensuring best chances to retain an active internet connection (not seamless, mind you) is to have a wired connection and a 3G/4G connection available, probably from different ISPs. Little more reasonable IMO, but still not worth it. 

 

I think the solutions suggested are very much "it's possible, in theory". None are really worth it for a normal home network. 

Yeah, residential ISPs just aren't configured to handle these kinds of requirements (even business grade services aren't that robust). Maybe if he can find some local ISP that isn't a huge corporation and willing to offer a BGP sessions for him to announce his own IPs (good luck getting a /24 from ARIN these days though) then it might be possible but for the typical broadband provider it's just not worth their time.

6 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

That single point would have to exist anyway

Yup, it's all about how much money he's willing to throw at the "problem" (assuming there even is a problem and this isn't just a thought experiment).

[skywake]

I think everyone is making this more complicated than it needs to be. The simple answer is yes, you can do this. You need a load balancing router. From there you have two options on how to set it up.

 

1. Failover

In this setup you have a main connection that effectively behaves as it always would. But when it goes down you will switch over to the other connection. Usually this process takes a bit to get going because keeping your game going is not really the point of it. This is a setup to make sure that when your internet goes down you're not entirely in the dark. For example in Australia you could get a fixed line plan for $80-100AU/mo with no data limits and then get a 5GB/year 4G mobile plan for ~$4AU/mo.

 

2. Load Balancing

As a single user this setup won't really benefit you. The intent is that when multiple streams hit the network they're spread across the two connections. With this setup you're not really worried about the internet going down as much. Your aim is to instead get more bandwidth than one connection can support. For example you might be outside of a fibre coverage area but need/want a connection that doesn't grind to a halt when you have something big to UL/DL. Because when that happens, in theory at least, the big UL/DL would use one connection and other users would sit on the other.