The only way you’d be able to load-balance between the two connections (as far 
as I know) would be to introduce a *third* router that treats the two existing 
ones as equal-cost paths.  However, because they will emit different IP 
addresses, you’ll find that this doesn’t actually work.  I don’t know of a way 
to accomplish load-balancing with pfSense.  Failover is easy, just plug both 
connections into a single pfSense router/firewall and configure appropriately.  
Failover is a very different animal from load-balancing unless you’re an ISP 
running BGP, in which case suddenly they look a lot alike.

 

RAD used to have a proprietary product that did this, but it looks like it’s 
long gone.  Adtran’s NetVanta routers support (somehow!) equal-cost 
load-balancing, but I can’t imagine they work any better than any of the other 
solutions for this problem have historically.

 

The only way I can think of using pfSense to load-balance is manually, by 
creating advanced NAT rules that direct the traffic of *some* internal IPs out 
to ISP#1 and *other* internal IPs out ISP#2.  No single IP would be able to use 
all the bandwidth of both, but two computers (if they were the right two!) 
could each use up all of the bandwidth on one ISP connection each.

 

AFAIK, to use CARP, you need 3 static IP addresses on each connection.  At 
least, that’s the way I’ve always set it up.  So once again, you’re asking for 
the impossible.

 

As I mentioned above, however, you *can* plug both the DSL and the cable 
connection into a single pfSense router and get automatic failover between the 
two connections.  Looking at your diagram, anything beyond that can’t 
(reasonably) be done.

 

(And, really, you can afford the labour to implement HA Exchange and all this 
complexity, but you can’t afford to upgrade to a single Comcast or Verizon 
business-grade connection???  Either you work for peanuts, or maybe someone in 
your office can’t do basic math.)

 

-Adam Thompson

[email protected]

(204) 291-7950 - direct

(204) 489-6515 - fax

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of Steven Anderson
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 8:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [pfSense] How to Load balance and Failover 2 ISP's

 


Greetings!

 

I previously tried to post to this group but for some reason it failed. So here 
I go again.

 

I own 2 pfSense boxes each is attached to an ISP one cable and one dsl. I have 
dynamic addressing. A single address on each connection (something I can not 
change too cost prohibitive unfortunately)

 

I would like to Load Balance between the two ISP's utilizing the fail-over carp 
feature for the pfsense boxes.


I do not know how to combine the two these things (Loadbalancing/Failover) . I 
am not even sure it is possible.

 

Help would be appreciated, I will return the favor by making a video/write up 
on exactly how to do it.

 

Thanks in advance for the help. My configuration diagram can be found here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/85847217/My-Configuration 

 

regards,

 

hikenboot

 

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