Friday, April 23, 2021

Best Way To Configure Network Failover For Two Separate Links

We have a warehouse across the parking lot from our office building with no network connectivity. Recently we wanted to get network connectivity into that warehouse. Eventually we'll hire a contractor to run proper ethernet or fiber if the budget ever gets approved. But for now I set up a wireless bridge with two wireless access points. The speed is poor but it's mostly reliable and works for what we need.

We recently discovered that a previous tenant must have run coax from the office building to the warehouse. I had a couple of coax to ethernet adapters in a drawer so I connected them on both ends and that also works. Speed is a little better, but those coax adapter devices stop working every once in a while and need to be rebooted.

What is the best way to configure an active/passive failover for these two links? If the coax adapters stop forwarding traffic we want the wireless bridge link to automatically take over. It can't just rely on layer 1 link status because the link lights stay on even when the adapter stops forwarding traffic, so it will have to monitor layer 3/4 as well. Something I can manage remotely is ideal since I travel often and work from home. I don't want to have to call my non-technical co-workers and ask them to move cables around.

From searching around it looks like HAProxy, nginx, or relayd might be good options. Is that the smartest way to go? Or is there another technology/solution that is more suited for what we're trying to do?

Thanks for any suggestions!



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