| Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO | ||
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| Prev | Chapter 10. Load sharing over multiple interfaces | Next |
Nothing is as easy as it seems. eth1 and eth2 on both router A and B need to have return path filtering turned off, because they will otherwise drop packets destined for ip addresses other than their own:
# echo 0 > /proc/net/ipv4/conf/eth1/rp_filter # echo 0 > /proc/net/ipv4/conf/eth2/rp_filter |
Then there is the nasty problem of packet reordering. Let's say 6 packets need to be sent from A to B - eth1 might get 1, 3 and 5. eth2 would then do 2, 4 and 6. In an ideal world, router B would receive this in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. But the possibility is very real that the kernel gets it like this: 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5. The problem is that this confuses TCP/IP. While not a problem for links carrying many different TCP/IP sessions, you won't be able to to a bundle multiple links and get to ftp a single file lots faster, except when your receiving or sending OS is Linux, which is not easily shaken by some simple reordering.
However, for lots of applications, link load balancing is a great idea.