File sharing on two separate ISPs through one switch

[colicab]

ok, here's the thing, server 2003, i have 2 ISP's, 2 routers, router 1 with address 192.168.254.1 and the other router's address is 192.168.254.
254, and one DES 1024D switch. 14 computers connect to the first router and 10 computers connect to the other router. all workstations have static ip's configured to respective gateways of the router. all i want to do is to share files without using load balancing routers/ dual wan router between these two ISP's to maximize what we are paying for the two ISPs.

is it possible to connect the two ISP's with the two routers on a switch? how will i even configure it for file sharing so that i can connect these two separate networks?

any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks

[techsheaven]

There are many advantages to a Dual-WAN, Load Balancing, Fail-over router like this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3860663&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

Having said that, you can use two routers and a switch to create one private network. You have already solved one issue - assigning IP addresses. Though this is not the only solution, it works. Now you need to assign the default gateway and the alternate configuration to use the same address and other gateway. You may want to turn off DHCP on both routers since you have static IPs set. That way if you connect a new device with DHCP enable, you won't have conflicts.

DNS shouldn't be a problem, because they will usually be the same as the default gateway. If there is a problem, or you want to ease the load on the routers, you can assign a public DNS. I think Google uses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

The final question is weather or not the clients can communicate. This is the part I am unsure of. I have set up this configuration before and it worked fine (except I assigned addresses from a split pool via DHCP so it would act as a fail-over) but I never tested their ability to communicate. I don't see a problem with it since everything is on the same subnet.

As far as the topology goes, I would connect all the clients to the switch and each router to the same switch (if it is practical). The nice thing about the DES 1024D switch is that it is auto-sensing and has plenty of ports!

This type of thing floats my boat! I wish I had the same equipment so I could configure it, test it and give you more specific instructions. Let me know what issues you run into.

Good Luck

[techsheaven]

A couple more thoughts... If one connection fails, the client's connections will drop and they will have to refresh their browsers.

NAT should be enabled on both routers.

Again.. Good Luck

[colicab]

thank you very much techsheaven, i'll try that configuration. just one clarification though, with DHCP disabled, two routers connected to one switch, is it still possible to assign an alternate gateway to some client computers so that i can still use the two ISPs at the same time?

like you said, since DES 1024D is auto sensing, can it still communicate to other client computers with different gateway?

thanks again.

[colicab]

Resolved already. just needed to make the two routers into the same subnet and connect the the routers to the switch, basically it is a manual split. i can also share files easily.

thanks a lot.

[techsheaven]

Assigning the alternate gateway is only for a sort of fail-over. You don't have to disable DHCP in the routers for everything to work, but since you have assigned IP addresses manually there is a situation that can arise:

Let's say you add a new device and forget to disable DHCP. The new device gets an address assigned from one of the routers ... say 192.168.1.100. Now you power up a device that has 192.168.1.100 assigned. The new device will work fine, and you will be scratching your head because a seemingly unrelated device would fail to connect!

I don't know of away to combine the bandwidth of the routers... but it sounds like a fun project!

Glad to help. Once it is up and running, don't forget to mark this thread as solved.

[colicab]

ok got it thanks for that. i agree, so i have assigned ip addresses outside the ip range of the router for example, linksys ip address range: 192.168.1.100 - 149. i think that the router will automatically assign IP's within this range, with DHCP enabled, so i decided to start the ip address for the other workstations to 192.168.1.150... and so on...

hope it works though. thanks again for the thought.

[techsheaven]

If you use DHCP, you will have to configure some sort of DHCP relay, or set the pools so they do not overlap.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780311(WS.10).aspx

And yes, I would set assigned devices in their own pool. so something like this would be nice:
Routers & Net Devices: 192.168.1.1 ~ 192.168.1.5 (4 network devices)

DHCP pool for Gateway 1 : 192.168.1.10 ~ 192.168.1.45 (25 DHCP Clients)

Assigned for Gateway 1 : 192.168.1.50 ~ 192.168.1.75 (25 assigned clients)

DHCP for Gateway 2 : 192.168.1.100 ~ 192.168.1.125 (25 DHCP Clients)

Assigned for Gateway 2: 192.168.1.150 ~ 192.168.1.175 (25 assigned Clients)

That leaves a bunch, but you said you only have 10 Clients right now. Remember not to make the pools too small because if one router goes down, DHCP clients will run out of IPs.

[techsheaven]

I guess I don't have to say this for your sake, but for others: This is all on the same subnet, so it will be the default subnet mask - 255.255.255.0

I look forward to hearing your results!

[techsheaven]

opps! I just noticed that you had 10 clients on ones router and 14 on the other. The scheme I suggested would be too tight for future expansion... but you get the idea I'm sure. The rest is just a matter of doing a bit of math utilizing the rest of the IPs.

Also, I don't know how clients decide which dhcp server to choose. In theory, it is the fastest to respond, so the load could become unbalanced if one router (DHCP server) always responds to the clients request faster.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780760(WS.10).aspx