3. Advanced Port

Overview

Advanced port options permits advanced WAN link related settings and optional connection configuration as required by your ISP and helps fine tune of the Multi WAN routing capabilities of your Octolinks SW88 Series Load Balancer.

·        Port Options contain options which can be set on either or both WAN ports. For most situations, the default values are satisfactory. For connection methods other than PPPoE, you may specify connection health check settings here.

·        Load Balancing screen is only functional if you are using both WAN ports. It allows you to determine the proportion of WAN traffic sent through each port and permits traffic specific settings.

·        Advanced PPPoE setup is required if you wish to use multiple sessions on one or both of the WAN ports. It can also be used to manually connect or disconnect a PPPoE session. Otherwise, this screen can be ignored.

·        Advanced PPTP setup is required if using the PPTP connection method.

Port Options

Port Options Page

Interface

MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit): Defines the maximum size of the packets sent from this device onto the network. The default is 1500. Sometimes you may want the MTU to be the same as the smallest MTU of all the networks between this device and a packet's final destination to avoid the packet from being fragmented.The default MTU allows the Octolinks SW88 Series Load Balancer to automatically determine the correct value.

Connection Health Check: Uses the following methods to check if the WAN interfaces are still connected to the Internet.

ICMP: If it is enabled, this device will perform ICMP echo test on the link between the WAN port and the specified host (Alive Indicator) periodically.

If there is at least one success echo out of four tries, this link passes the ICMP test. Otherwise, it fails.

HTTP: If it is enabled, this device will build a TCP connection between the WAN port and the Alive Indicator first. Then the device will send a HTTP HEAD packet to the Alive Indicator periodically. If the Alive Indicator replies with an acknowledgment out of 5 tries, the link passes the HTTP test. Otherwise, it fails.

Traffic: If it is enabled and if there are packets through the WAN port in the Interval time, the WAN link is considered as connected. Otherwise, the device refers to an active health check method such as HTTP or ICMP.

Interval: The period in seconds to check if the WAN port is responding.

Alive Indicator: This field should be filled in with a host name (FQDN) or IP address for the ICMP or HTTP methods.

Transparent Bridge Option

Bridge Mode: If enabled, traffic from LAN hosts with real IPs can go through the specified WAN port without NAT translation, this device will work like a bridge switch for that specified WAN port.

NetBIOS Broadcast: If enabled, NetBIOS Broadcast packets are allowed to be passed through the device.

Transparent Bridge Options (For all interfaces)

Traffic Management:

Strict binding: If enabled, the traffic from LAN hosts go only through the bridged WAN interface.

Loose binding: If enabled, the traffic from LAN hosts go through the bridged WAN interface when the specified link is connected. Otherwise, it goes to the alternative WAN interface in NAT mode. It will then  act like a failover mechanism for Transparent Bridge mode.

Load Balancing: If enabled, the traffic from LAN hosts go through the WAN interface based on the loading mechanism specified in the Load Balance section. It will act like a load balancing mechanism for Transparent Bridge mode.

No IP Translation: When Bridge mode is set to Loose binding or Load Balancing and if the bridged WAN link is down, the packets from LAN hosts can go through an alternative WAN interface with its original source IP if checked or with the alternative WAN IP (NATed) if unchecked.

ARP Table: This ARP table is applied on the device only in bridge mode. Its size can be adjusted if necessary.

Settings – Port Options

Load Balancing

This screen is only operational if using Internet connections on more than one WAN port.

When load balancing is enabled, the device will automatically assign the WAN port that has the lightest current load based on the Loading Share ratio.

Load Balancing Page

Load Balancing Configuration

Enable: Allows you to enable or disable the Load Balancing feature.

Load Balancing Base on: Select the desired option to measure traffic load.

Bytes Tx + Rx: The link with the least number of bytes transmitted through the WAN port.
Packets Tx + Rx: The link with the least number of packets transmitted through the WAN port.
Sessions Established: The link with the least number of sessions built on the WAN port.
IP Addresses: The link with the least number of Host IP addresses built on the WAN port.
Auto Learning: The link with the the largest unused upload/outgoing bandwidth.
Fastest: The link with the the largest upload bandwidth.
Priority: The link with the the highest priority.
Round Robin: Cyclic repeating sequence among all available WAN ports.
Weight Round Robin: Cyclic sequence numbered as per user assigned weight per WAN port.

Loading Share: Enter the desired percent of traffic load for each WAN port.

Traffic Statistics Configuration and display

This section enables the setting and display of :

1. Interface Statistics
2. Traffic statistics on WAN ports.

The Current Statistics and the Overall Statistics sections display WAN port status, usage and bandwidth utilization statistics.

Settings – Load Balanccing