Two DSL Lines, Two Nics, weird question

[zakkenay0]

I have one DSL line running to a 4 port+wireless router, which is supporting between 2 and 4 computers at one time. In another room I have a completely seperate DSL line connected to a directly computer with a NIC and a USB 802.11b wireless card. Is there a way bridge the connection between the two DSL connections AND set it up so that if one DSL line goes down, everything gets routed through the other DSL line?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Also, all computers are Windows XP Home or Professional.

 

[Oaf357]

What you'd need is a router that can accept two "WAN" connections.

Or get two routers, link them together then add default gateways as needed.

 

[JackMDS]

Here his your best solution: Nexland Pro800turbo.

 

[Armoth]

Hmmm...never seen that Nexland box before...interesting...

I was going to say that you would almost have to go with heavier duty routers that can have floating static routes and set something up similar to dial-on-demand routing (DDR) which is a common practice for providing backup links to primary WAN links.

Nice find JackMDS! Have you used this product before then?

 

[Oaf357]

Very nice.

 

[zakkenay0]

Wow, thanks for all the tips! I really appreciate it. The network will only have 5 or 6 people on it max, and I really cant spend more than a couple hundred dollars on a solution. Im going to look in to the costs of what everyone suggested.

 

[zakkenay0]

Can I make the single computer with the second DSL line a gateway then set up each computer to look for the main router, then the second computer as gateways.

 

[zakkenay0]

I dont think I can use that dual router because there is I cant run a line from the second DSL line to the router. Otherwise that thing would be perfect though!

 

[Armoth]

You can definitely go into the advanced properties under tcp/ip settings in WinXP and add another gateway. If your primary line goes down and you do have the second gateway added in, it would roll over to the second line fairly easily. My only concern is that that failover might not be without hiccups i.e. everytime you go to the internet or whatever it will try to hit the first gateway and then you'll have to wait for it to timeout and then rollover to the next gateway. Maybe it's more instantaneous and WinXP is more advanced than I think I dunno. You'll just have to play with it.

 

[zakkenay0]

Yeah, Im probably going to try that first. Hopefully it will wont lag too much and it will just adapt, since that seems to be the TCP/IP way..

 

[Armoth]

The thing I failed to remember earlier is that even if you add a second gateway into the adanced properties, you likely will have to tweak the interface metrics for each gateway as well. I'm sure if you search google, you can find some kind of whitepaper or FAQ's on this sort of subject. Sorry, I don't have time to look myslef right now.

 

[skyking]

How often does one of the lines go down? Are they from the same provider? I am just curious, because if they are the same DSL provider, The likelihood of one going down and not the other is pretty slim.
If you can plug a few cables and do a release/renew whenever there is a problem, you could use a couple of patch panels to get the desired effect.