Wingate with multiple internet connections

[serginho]

Hi,

I'm having a few problems setting up the options for multiple external (internet) connections on WinGate 6. I'm quite sure I have seen a paper on the subject, but I couldn't find it any more (I could swear I have seen it on Qbik's site). It's working, at least, sort off. I just wanna make sure everything is set up correctly

Do you have something written available on the subject so I can read it before starting making stupid questions? Things like "what is supposed to be set on the gateway and DNS options for the external cards?" would be a good starting point. "How rotation and fail-over work exactly?", too

Thanks for your help

Regards

Serginho

[logan]

Hi Serginho,

A silly question is always better than a silly mistake. I'm sure the active members on this forum will be quite happy to answer any questions that you have, no matter how stupid they might seem.

I only found the following resource that seems to be specific to what you are asking. This may help you set up your multiple external connections.
WinGate Helpfile -> Network Connections

Also, here is a White Paper on IP Routing. This doesn't contain information about setting up WinGate, but it does explain alot about TCP/IP networking and using gateways.
http://www.wingate.com/files/routing_paper_letter.pdf

[serginho]

Hi, Logan

Thanks for the answer. By the time I got your answer, I was already doing some extra digging, so I think now I understand a bit more the basics, but I'm still confused. Let's see:

My WinGate PC has 3 NICs, 1 for the LAN, 2 for accessing the Internet, each of these connected to a separate router which in turn connect to two different ISPs. I don't see another way to do it, so each card is setup with a different gateway, the IP address of its respective DSL router:

ISP1 (NIC1):
IP = 192.168.11.231/255.255.255.0
GW = 192.168.11.1 (the router's IP)
DNS = 192.168.11.1

ISP2 (NIC2):
IP = 192.168.12.231/255.255.255.0
GW = 192.168.12.1 (the router's IP)
DNS = 192.168.12.1

When I setup the second NIC, Windows complains about using two different gateways. Well, on "All You Ever Wanted To Know About IP Routing (By Adrien de Croy – Rev 1.0 25 April 2003)", 4.3.2 says "Make sure only one of the interfaces has a default gateway set".

Though the network is operating correctly most of the time, some times I have problems connecting to some VPN hosts (ramdomly): usually, disabling one of the external NICs until the VPN is connected, solves the problem. Another thing that isn't stable either, is the "Use specified connection in priority order (failover)" on the "Gateways" option of the WinGate services properties: in this case, particularly speaking of the WWW Proxy Server service, I can no longer navigate the Internet if the main connection drops.

So, what extra configurations should I do? Changing metrics? If so, at the Advanced tab in WinGate Network Connections or at the TCP/IP properties of the NICs? Any other changes?

Thanks again for the time spent on this, it's really appreciated

Regards

Serginho