I have 2 lines, one 30M/3 (cable) and another 25M/10 (DSL) and the dual LAN feature would interest me in load balance mode, as I don't have access to Giga optical FTTH.
For those not familiar with dual WAN routing, like myself, I have found the following
link which explains the pros and cons of it.
The dual WAN routing should be ideal with very active users (gaming, videos) on a network to split traffic.
For $60, a load balancer like
TP Link R470T just does that for 10/100M networks and the more expensive counterpart
TP-ER5120 for Giga networks. It takes care also of the max allowed monthly bandwidth per line to restraint traffic above a limit. User manuals can be downloaded to get an idea of the specifications.
With
RT-AC68 &
FW 380.57, what I discovered is if you don't assign one line (Upload and Download on the same line) per PC, it just doesn't work. Https websites access are broken as IP changes during browsing as tracking cookies are messed up. Same for Google or Facebook accounts which would need constantly to confirm change of IP address.
With many clients referenced on the network, it is fastidious to assign each of them manually. The entire process must done again if one of them is modified as the system doesn't keep track of the previous setup. The manual assignment doesn't seem to work properly either.
What would be convenient is to take advantage of reserved IP/MAC table with DHCP service to assign by default primary line to even internal IP and secondary to odd IP, unless otherwise specified in routing rules. New devices unassigned in the IP/MAC table would have automatically a designated line.
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I have reversed my main router AC68 back to FW 378.56-2 as I have read on this forum there were some issues with 2.4GHz Wifi for this model. Fortunately, I have kept all the settings on a txt file so I could do a factory reset without losing the knowledge of my previous settings. It is fastidious but it is the only way to be sure it is done correctly.
With Dual WAN, for me, it works better if I assign each PC either on WAN1 (primary WAN) or WAN2 (secondary LAN1). I don't know the default routing rules when a client is not assigned a line. Also, I only assign the outgoing flow, not the incoming flow as I suspect the web servers reply to the same IP they received a request from.
Forcing a PC to use a specific WAN is pretty simple. Enter its internal IP (always the same IP per PC with MAC reservation) as source IP. Leave the destination IP blank and select WAN unit. Apply the settings.
To access from the outside (
http://mydomain.com:xxxx) to the AC68, its IP 192.168.1.1 must also point to a specific WAN as well for a N66 used as a second Access Point which uses 192.168.1.100.
My main router AC68 is behind another router for each line. For WAN1, it's a NETGEAR 3500L which I use for its ability to provide isolation and a good QoS for an ATA VoIP phone line, to keep accurate daily, weekly, monthly bandwidth consumption for current and previous month in case of power outage, which I haven't figured out how to do with AC68. There is no daily or current month traffic monitoring per WAN.
The router on WAN2 is the one provided by the ISP. It does the basic PPoE setting and I believe it would be easier to switch remotely WAN1 to WAN2 if necessary.
To access from outside of my home, DDNS is done for each line by a Synology NAS, one per line. The NAS are able to do that behind the routers. AC68 can't do DDNS on asuscomm.comm in the multiple-NAT environment behind router but RT-N56U can with Padavan FW.
A RT-N66 with FW 380.57 is also used as secondary Access Point. With this FW, when a wireless client connects thru it, it does not appears on the main router RT-AC68 in the client status list as wired device like in older FW. Not a big deal, but when checking adaptive QoS, there is a ghost WAN bandwidth consumption without seeing the device in the list underneath the WAN/LAN Bandwidth Monitors.
On QoS-WAN/LAN Bandwith Monitor, everything looks Okay concerning the PCs on WAN1 but the PCs assigned to WAN2 show their Download bandwidth on Upload Bandwidth. It seems that for them Download and Upload are merged on Upload bandwidth. The lower bar never moves and always indicates 0.0Kb. Same for Traffic Analyzer chart, downloaded traffic on Wireless (5GHz) WAN2 is not reported on Ethernet WAN (LAN1). Why not to scale the chart in Mb/s instead of KB/s?. A 3Mbps upload appears on the chart as 442.07 KB/s.
Anyway, everything is working for what I wanted to achieve. Thanks for Eric for his hard work and for ASUS for maintaining FW for their older routers (no always done by their competitors for their respective routers). ASUS should nevertheless do a better coding job. The dual line give me 55Mb combined speed for 5 PCs, more expensive than a single 60M line but I can switch more easily from one ISP retailer to another as retail price and packages vary a lot over time. In the past, my main line has been cut off for 2 weeks by the carrier technician who broke the socket of my connection when fixing the line of my neighbour.
)
