I'm looking to purchase multiple cable/broadband accounts (lets say two to simplify things).

Is there a Linux device/distro that can handle load balancing to aggregate multiple connections?

Is this possible with Cisco IOS?

I've found http://www.peplink.com and http://www.fatpipeinc.com but I was wondering if this was possible with our existing Cisco router(1841) or if I could build a Linux box to handle this.

yes - check lartc.org chapter 4

yes - not done it myself though, and costs a lot more than a $0 linux solution from scratch. to my knowledge if you just have two equal metric default routes it will load balance on a per flow basis. obviously inbound is a seperate issue

There's a number of devices on the market that will do this also.. a lot cheaper than a Cisco solution
Fortinet for instance.. (which I believe is based on OSS)
http://www.fortinet.com/doc/FGT50_100DS.pdf

these units are reasonably priced and can perform quite a number of functions..

Firewall, VPN, True DMZ interfaces, Dual WAN interfaces, Spam filtering, AV Filtering, Web Content filtering, and MORE !

Just something else for you to look at.


I run one of these in 'inline mode' it sits Between my Cisco router (Border) and my Checkpoint Firewall and handles the Anti-SPAM, AV and Web Filtering a lot cheaper than Checkpoints subscription for those same services. in inline mode the other deices don't realize it's even there..

yes but he's already got a cisco router, and a linux solution would also cost next to nothing. a fortinet box will cost vastly more than that.

Didn't catch the existing part.. and of course the Linux solution would be cheaper (free)

It's still nice to know what other options are out there..

Thanks for the information. It should keep me busy for a while.