Guide to Multi-Connection and Load Balancing with LEDE/OpenWrt

1. Single Line Multi-Connection

1. Set WAN port to PPPoE dial-up

Select Network from the top menu, then select Interface, find WAN port, click Modify, then select PPPoE as the protocol, after confirming the protocol switch, enter the broadband account and password, and finally save and apply.

2. Set up a virtual WAN port

In the network menu, select Virtual WAN, check Enable, the number of virtual WAN interfaces depends on the number of required single line multi-connections, I set it to 2, which is the maximum, so I fill in 2, you can fill in a larger number first, for example, fill in 8, determine the maximum number of dial-ups and then come back to modify, and check to use the old macvlan creation method, finally save and apply.

3. Check if the maximum dial-up is successful

In the network menu, select Load Balancing, view the connection status, if the interface shows green, it means the connection is successful, if it is red, it means it failed.

As shown in the figure, I set two dial-ups, both interfaces show green, indicating success.

If the final number of green displays is how many, that is the maximum number of dial-ups allowed by the broadband line, at this time you can return to the virtual WAN location to modify the number of virtual WAN interfaces.

If the final maximum only has one interface connected successfully, or none connected, it means that the broadband line cannot support multi-connection. In this case, you should turn off the virtual WAN port and give up the idea of single line multi-connection.

2. Multi-Line Multi-Connection

1. Change LAN port to WAN port

Enter the Switch option in the network menu, there will be two default settings as shown in the figure, number 1 is the default LAN port, number 2 is the default WAN port.

At this point, I create WAN2 from LAN1, click the Add button, add number 3, set CPU in number 3 to Associated, set LAN1 in number 1 to Off, and set LAN1 in number 3 to Unassociated, and set other unused interfaces in number 3 to Off.

If I want to create WAN3, I will operate in the same way.

After creating all interfaces, the names in the system will be in order as eth0.1, eth0.2, eth0.3, eth0.4.

Specific reference can be made to the figure below.

2. Create WAN2 interface

Select Interface in the network menu, then click Add New Interface, set the new interface name to WAN2, here the letter case matters, you need to remember whether you used uppercase or lowercase in naming, otherwise it may fail later.

After naming, select Switch VLAN eth0.3 below.

Then choose the protocol for the new interface, since the one I connected is directly obtaining dynamic IP to connect to the network, I choose DHCP client as the protocol.

Then you can submit.

3. Set WAN2 properties

First, go to Advanced Settings, set the gateway hop, each WAN port (including virtual WAN) cannot have the same gateway hop, please check the properties of other WAN ports and fill in a different number.

Then you need to set a MAC address for WAN2, the MAC address also cannot be the same for each interface, it is recommended to copy the original WAN port address first, and then modify the last 3 digits.

Then go to Physical Settings, check whether the interface is connected to the Switch VLAN eth0.3, it has already been set in the first step, if it is correct, you can go directly to the next step.

If it was not set in the first step, or if you did not select the right one when checking here, you can reselect here.

Then go to Firewall Settings, select WAN, and save and apply.

3. Load Balancing Settings

In the network menu, select Load Balancing, then go to the configuration page.

First, in the interface position, add WAN2, here it is important that the name of WAN2 must match the case used when creating the WAN2 interface.

After adding, modify the configuration of WAN2, first enable the position selection to Yes, then add the tracking IP for detection, you can add the following IPs:

115.239.210.27

115.239.211.112

220.181.112.244

220.181.111.188

114.114.114.114

114.114.115.115

Then check the hop number, whether it displays and is consistent with the WAN2 interface, if the name case does not match, the hop number will not display here, and it will cause connection errors later.

After confirming that it is correct, save and apply.

Then click on the Members page, add a member, the name format is “Interface Name_m1_w1”, for example, here it is “WAN2_m1_w1”.

Then you will reach the member configuration page, here select the WAN2 interface, set both the hop number and weight to 1, then save and apply.

Then go to the Policy page, click Modify in balanced

Then in the used members, add a new member, select WAN2_m1_w1, and set the backup member to default, then save and apply.

If you want to add WAN3, just repeat the above operation.

4. Check if multi-line multi-connection is successful

Still in the network menu, click Load Balancing, check the interface status color, if green, it means successfully connected and aggregated speed.

If the newly added interface cannot go online, you need to check if there are any errors in the settings, and whether the upstream network is normal.

As shown in the figure, I set WAN1 single line double dial, then additionally added WAN2, WAN3 two network accesses, aggregated speed, now 2 virtual WAN ports and two physical WAN ports WAN2, WAN3 are successfully connected, indicating that it is already in normal use.