Sorry for the thread necromancy, but there seems to be no clear answer to this question yet?
Is there a recommended way to get my WNR3500L to be a great Dual WAN router (load balancing with fail over) for two PPPoE ADSL connections? It looks like there are very long threads on this on some of the other firmware sites, but I like the look & feel of Tomato and it sounds like it's more solid.
Please dont tell me I have to load some ancient buggy firmware solution or a closed Chinese-only version of Tomato... :/
DD-WRT allows to configure vlans now via webinterface, so you can do this step via gui. What do you mean by two adsl links? There is support on the pppoe setup page for multilink, single line. Do you have two lines you want to use or one line with multiple links?
Yes, two seperate ASDL2 lines on their own POTS circuits (no DSLAM bonding) connected to ADSL modems/routers[D-Link DSL2540B]. Both ADSL modems would be connected to ports (PPPoE bridging mode) on a WNR3500L.
If that's possible I would be very happy with that solution.
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Ultimate Version:
What I would really like to do though, is configure the router in multi-WAN (arbitrary port assignments, including any USB attached WWAN radios as well). I'm assuming it's possible to change the LAN & WAN VLANs to arbitrarily include any of LAN 1-4, WAN, WiFi, USB 3G/4G sticks.
This is similar to what the Chinese Dual-WAN Tomato implementation has I believe. Unfortunately, they list the Netgear 3500L as unsupported (not to mention no source) -- which means unlikely to work.
Btw: While a stock, easy web interface for setting up Dual-WAN configuration would help a lot of people(there are a LOT of threads around), I'm certainly capable of configuring nvram, telneting, route changes, scripts, C/C++, kernel development, etc.
I just want to know that someone has actually gotten this scenario (see above) to work on the 3500L with a modern firmware build. All of the threads I've looked at lately end with the poster saying it's unstable or asking for help.
I guess you have to find out for yourself. I don't have such a setup and cannot provide a full guide for that, but if you have specific questions I can try to answer them.
I think you can enable testing Dual-WAN a number of ways with just one Internet feed. The following two network topologies should work if you used static addresses / VLANs on the routers.
Both of these setups should allow you to route Dual WAN traffic to one real internet connection, for dev/test purposes:
Just test out the Static/DHCP/PPPoE/NAT parts afterward with one WAN link at a time. You could insert a 3rd Wireless router as a WiFi client(w/NAT on the LAN side), in the first picture, if that helps with testing PPPoE/DHCP/etc. + Dual Ethernet WANs all at the same time. Finally, you can test link failover, load-balancing, etc. by disconnecting or interfering (nearby Microwave ovens interrupt 2.48GHz WiFI links) with one of the WAN* ports when both are active.
Something like this should enable anyone to test out or develop UI for Dual-WANs (if they are already skilled with HTTP, VLANs and routing). The payoff here is that it would be possible and probably easy for anyone with your most excellent firmware to set up one or more failover / backup links -- this is of significant value if you are relying on the internet to be up for VoIP(especially 911), self-hosting HTTP servers, P2P file sharing, multiple FTP clients/servers, accessing your workplace, or any number of other scenarios where need high reliabilty and/or more aggregate bandwidth using multiple links for home or business use.
P.S.> I suspect that VLAN config UI you mentioned is already about half-way towards enabling Dual-WANs or even Multi-WANs (with the correct routing, addressing and optional authentication info). Now that would make DD-WRT or Tomato more like a classic IP router as opposed to a Gateway.
Some interesting reading about what others want or are doing regarding Dual/Multi-WAN routing. These could probably be considered a starting point for requirements for such a project.
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Sorry for the thread necromancy, but there seems to be no clear answer to this question yet?
Is there a recommended way to get my WNR3500L to be a great Dual WAN router (load balancing with fail over) for two PPPoE ADSL connections? It looks like there are very long threads on this on some of the other firmware sites, but I like the look & feel of Tomato and it sounds like it's more solid.
Please dont tell me I have to load some ancient buggy firmware solution or a closed Chinese-only version of Tomato... :/
I saw those DD-WRT wiki entries. Has anyone used them successfully on the current Tomato builds with the WNR3500L and two PPPoE ADSL links?
I KNOW this part (at the very least) does not match the hardware config of the 3500L.
This link looked promising: (No PPPoE though)
http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64850
DD-WRT allows to configure vlans now via webinterface, so you can do this step via gui. What do you mean by two adsl links? There is support on the pppoe setup page for multilink, single line. Do you have two lines you want to use or one line with multiple links?
Basic Version:
Yes, two seperate ASDL2 lines on their own POTS circuits (no DSLAM bonding) connected to ADSL modems/routers[D-Link DSL2540B]. Both ADSL modems would be connected to ports (PPPoE bridging mode) on a WNR3500L.
If that's possible I would be very happy with that solution.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ultimate Version:
What I would really like to do though, is configure the router in multi-WAN (arbitrary port assignments, including any USB attached WWAN radios as well). I'm assuming it's possible to change the LAN & WAN VLANs to arbitrarily include any of LAN 1-4, WAN, WiFi, USB 3G/4G sticks.
This is similar to what the Chinese Dual-WAN Tomato implementation has I believe. Unfortunately, they list the Netgear 3500L as unsupported (not to mention no source) -- which means unlikely to work.
Btw: While a stock, easy web interface for setting up Dual-WAN configuration would help a lot of people(there are a LOT of threads around), I'm certainly capable of configuring nvram, telneting, route changes, scripts, C/C++, kernel development, etc.
I just want to know that someone has actually gotten this scenario (see above) to work on the 3500L with a modern firmware build. All of the threads I've looked at lately end with the poster saying it's unstable or asking for help.
Q: Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
I guess you have to find out for yourself. I don't have such a setup and cannot provide a full guide for that, but if you have specific questions I can try to answer them.
I think you can enable testing Dual-WAN a number of ways with just one Internet feed. The following two network topologies should work if you used static addresses / VLANs on the routers.
Both of these setups should allow you to route Dual WAN traffic to one real internet connection, for dev/test purposes:
Just test out the Static/DHCP/PPPoE/NAT parts afterward with one WAN link at a time. You could insert a 3rd Wireless router as a WiFi client(w/NAT on the LAN side), in the first picture, if that helps with testing PPPoE/DHCP/etc. + Dual Ethernet WANs all at the same time. Finally, you can test link failover, load-balancing, etc. by disconnecting or interfering (nearby Microwave ovens interrupt 2.48GHz WiFI links) with one of the WAN* ports when both are active.
Something like this should enable anyone to test out or develop UI for Dual-WANs (if they are already skilled with HTTP, VLANs and routing). The payoff here is that it would be possible and probably easy for anyone with your most excellent firmware to set up one or more failover / backup links -- this is of significant value if you are relying on the internet to be up for VoIP(especially 911), self-hosting HTTP servers, P2P file sharing, multiple FTP clients/servers, accessing your workplace, or any number of other scenarios where need high reliabilty and/or more aggregate bandwidth using multiple links for home or business use.
P.S.> I suspect that VLAN config UI you mentioned is already about half-way towards enabling Dual-WANs or even Multi-WANs (with the correct routing, addressing and optional authentication info). Now that would make DD-WRT or Tomato more like a classic IP router as opposed to a Gateway.
Some interesting reading about what others want or are doing regarding Dual/Multi-WAN routing. These could probably be considered a starting point for requirements for such a project.
http://gpsinformation.info/joe/routers/MultiWANroouters.html
http://review.techworld.com/networking/3235085/dual-wan-router-round-up/...
Btw: The first guy started his search for a good Dual-WAN solution a decade ago in 2001.
I have the Tomato Multiwan running on my WNR3500L. It works great. I wrote a guide on getting everything setup.
http://www.threaded.se/showthread.php?6-TomatoUSB-Dualwan-Multiwan
I'm working on a translation for the Tomato Dualwan/multiwan firmware, should be available soon!
I guess this topic gets updated every couple of years. Here's a video I made on how to do this with Shibby's firmware:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5eE_6bhZbA