Redundant VPN Tunnels via Different ISPs

Network Diagram or Whatever

Intro My friends will tell you that I’m obsessed with redundancy, both in life and in I.T. At home I have two main internet connections, via Altice Optimum (“cable”) and Verizon FiOS. They’re both relatively high bandwidth, and are connected to my two core routers that operate in an active/passive configuration. Basically this: O——O +——–+ / \ | |————/ O +——————+——————–| Core | / / | Optimum Router | | Router |———-O / +——————+\ ______________| 01 | \ O \ / | |————O \ \ / +——–+ / \ X Keepalived | / Various O / \ Heartbeat | O Networks / / \ +——–+ \ O +——————+/ \_____________| |———–\ \ | FiOS Router | | Core | \ O … Continue reading

Netgear LG 6100D Sprint LTE Gateway – Advanced Configuration

Netgear 6100D Native GUI Backup and Restore Settings

Man, oh man! I was getting frustrated with my new 6100D LTE gateway from Sprint. In fact, I posted a very long rant about it yesterday. This post is all about solutions. Really, it’s about one very big solution: http://[Netgear 6100D Address]/index.asp What is that? Oh, not much, just the native Netgear configuration GUI. It has about ten times the feature set of Sprint’s half-baked GUI. Seriously. Already have a problem? This didn’t happen to me at first, but I must have triggered some state within the 6100D that causes this screen to appear when returning to the Netgear GUI after having used the Sprint GUI: If you find yourself redirected to this utterly pointless landing page, just change the … Continue reading

Netgear LG 6100D LTE Gateway for Sprint Review – Bad Device, or the Worst Device?

Netgear Joke 9000

I recently obtained a Netgear LG6100D LTE Gateway from Sprint as a backup for my hard internet connections. The device seemed perfect on paper: Cellular connectivity for the home or business network! I’ve used some bad consumer routers in my day, but this is one of the worst I’ve encountered. Or maybe it’s that it looked so promising at first and then let me down so hard. Update (2014-08-26): I found that you can access the native Netgear web GUI. It has a heck of a lot more features, and solves many of the complaints I have with the “correct” way of configuring this device. Upon logging in the user interface is clean, fairly informative, and I noticed that the … Continue reading

Fix for: Keepalived router enters fault state on link down

keepalived_logo

TL;DR: This is the configuration option you want: dont_track_primary At work and at home I have pairs of redundant “core” routers in an active-passive (or master-backup as you like) configuration. They consist of commodity hardware, a few 4-port gigabit NICs, and CentOS. All of these machines had been running flawlessly for anywhere from two to six years (as they were put into service or upgraded). That is until yesterday when my primary router at home had an SSD failure which completely stopped it in its tracks. The backup router took over, and in less than a second traffic was being routed. All of my point-to-point VPNs reconnected within about 20 seconds. In other words, it worked exactly as it should. … Continue reading