Very Computer

Seems that my roommates company is willing to pay for them to get DSL. So
that means 2 DSL connections. I currently have my PPPoE DSL connection
working fine off a Redhat Linux 7.0 firewall. I was wondering if anyone has
done multilink PPP using 2 DSL modems, with 2 different ISPs?
Is it possible?
Also, mine uses PPPoE, but the new one has a static IP address I believe.
Can I run multilink over a mixed connection like this?

TIA
Kenneth

I haven't.

Quote:> Is it possible?

It's remotely possible, but both ISPs must support MP links with
their DSL connections.

Quote:> Also, mine uses PPPoE, but the new one has a static IP address I believe.
> Can I run multilink over a mixed connection like this?

I doubt it, a PPP implementation supporting Multilink isn't likely
to support PPPoE at all.  MP is designed to aggregate PPP links, not
PPPoE links.

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/* In my book, the first poster to resort to personal abuse in a Usenet
   debate loses by default.  -  Rod Smith */

           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

By definition, RFC 1990 MP can't be used on links that terminate on
different ISPs.  It doesn't matter what you do on your end.

Look into load balancing instead.

Quote:> I doubt it, a PPP implementation supporting Multilink isn't likely
> to support PPPoE at all.  MP is designed to aggregate PPP links, not
> PPPoE links.

I don't see a good reason why this should be so.  MP across multiple
T1s is not uncommon, nor is MP across multiple L2TP streams.  I see no
reason that an implementation couldn't support both, nor a reason that
one that supports both would prevent MP over PPPoE.

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Sorry, I misread "It does require specific support in both peers'
implementations of PPP" to mean that two ISPs could be used.  I'll try
not to do that again (but no guarantee) and, perhaps, read the RFC.

Quote:> Look into load balancing instead.
>> I doubt it, a PPP implementation supporting Multilink isn't likely
>> to support PPPoE at all.  MP is designed to aggregate PPP links, not
>> PPPoE links.
> I don't see a good reason why this should be so.  MP across multiple
> T1s is not uncommon, nor is MP across multiple L2TP streams.  I see no
> reason that an implementation couldn't support both, nor a reason that
> one that supports both would prevent MP over PPPoE.

One of the great things about usenet is that being wrong often elicits
a correct reply from someone who *knows* better. :)

Still, don't you have to split out PPP from the Ethernet framing to
aggregate links?  It's questionable whether Linux software exists to
do that for MP - yet.  Or perhaps that could/would be done in the TA?

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To do it through two ISPs would require some serious effort.  At least
one of the two connections would need to be tunneled -- say, PPP over
L2TP over UDP over IP over PPP.  You'd then need to get that tunneled
connection back to the bundle head on the other ISP.  Even if you
could get all of that to work (and the ISPs went along with it), it
would perform like a stuck pig and would have the worst possible
reliability.

So, the short answer is, "no, you can't do that."

Quote:> Still, don't you have to split out PPP from the Ethernet framing to
> aggregate links?

Yes.

Putting aside the fact that you can run MP on a single link if you
want (which would be helpful on those annoying PPPoE links with MTU of
1492, since MP can give you any IP MTU you like), all you need is
multiple PPP links.  So, for instance, if you had two ADSL bridges
using PPPoE going to the same provider, you could run MP between those
PPP links.

Quote:>  It's questionable whether Linux software exists to
> do that for MP - yet.  Or perhaps that could/would be done in the TA?

(Note that TAs aren't generally used with PPPoE.)  Usually, with TAs,
you're talking about a single ISDN line, and you're using MP so that
you can aggregate the two B channels.  That doesn't mean you can't
aggregate channels from multiple ISDN lines -- you can.  To do it,
though, you need access to the real B channels.  If you have TAs with
two serial ports (one for each channel), or if you have integrated
ISDN adapters (where all channels are directly accessible), then you
can do this.  In testing, I've run MP links with 30 B channels in a
single bundle over E1 lines.

If the TA has multiple ISDN ports (I know of routers like that, but
not TAs), then the TA can safely do the MP.  Otherwise, if multiple
ISDN ports are in use, then the TA can't be doing the MP fragmentation
or reassembly.

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I don't think you need to do a 'multilink'.
Since you are already one of the brighter beings and you have a Linux
box, then I would recommend the following:

add two NIC into your Linux box (or get an old P66, P100, 486) from a PC
HW shop.
Two network cards get connected (crossover) to the two different DSL
modems.
You keep your PPPoE setup for your dynamic card and just add a static IP
IF on the connection for the other DSL.

Now you have two connections into the same provider (I assume, otherwise
this won't make any sense unless you want to do major routing
exercises).

With Linux they will outgoing load share (I guess it's an overflow type,
if one pipe gets full the other one takes the spill-over).

Internally: you sure want both to run your systems.

Get a small cheap 10/100 switch (around $70, netgear swith at Best Buy),
couple of cables, install firewall and masquerading on the host that is
connected (SuSE has best out of the box functional setup here), and run
a little LAN with masqueraded 10..... addresses.

I would anyway never connect without a firewall.
Now you can point your default routes of the other systems to the one
private interface on the box that has the two DSL connected interfaces.

You might want to make a drawing......

Have fun

Mike

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