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MikroTik Load Balancing over Multiple Gateways (2 WAN)

Load Balancing is a technique used to send network traffic over multiple gateways. If you have
multiple ISP connections in your network, you can send your network traffic through those ISP
connections and can make a load balancing network. Accidently you may ask me, why will I use
multiple ISP connections? What are the benefits to use multiple ISP connections in my network?
I will say, ask yourself deeply then you will find the reasons why multiple ISP connections is
necessary in your network. However, I am giving you some reasons which will show you the
necessities of multiple ISP connections in your network.

1. No ISP can give you 100% guarantee that their connection will remain always alive. So, it will be
better to use more than one ISP connection in your network so that you can increase your
internet access probability.
2. You have an ISP connection that is not so good but you cannot disconnect it because you are
using other services (such as Mail, IPPBX etc.) of this ISP. In this case, you can use another ISP
which will provide you better service.
3. You have an ISP connection that is better but high paid bandwidth. In this case, you can
purchase another ISP bandwidth which is cheap but their connection is good, not better.

I think, you are now determined to use multiple ISP connections in your network. If you have
multiple ISP connections, you can balance your network load as well as you can make link
redundancy. There are a number of ways by which you can make load balancing as well as link
redundancy using MikroTik router. Among them, today I will show you how to do only load
balancing network using Policy Based Routing (PBR) in MikroTik router.

Policy Routing Based on Client IP Address

Policy Based Routing (PBR) is a technique which is used to make routing decisions based on
policies those are set by any network administrator. So, today I will show you a policy in
MikroTik router by which you can build a load balancing network.

If you have a number of hosts as well as multiple ISP connections, you may group your hosts by
IP addresses and then depending on the source IP address send traffic out through different ISP
connections. For example, consider a simple office network diagram like below where two ISP
connections are being used as gateways of a MikroTik router.
Load Balancing Network over Multiple Gateways

In this network diagram, there are two ISP connections those are being used as WAN
connections of a MikroTik router. Also, a number of hosts are connected to this MikroTik router
through a distribution switch. As dual WAN connections are available for this MikroTik router,
we will create a policy routing so that our half of the total LAN users will access internet through
WAN1 ISP connection and rest of the LAN users will access internet through WAN2 ISP
connection.

5 Steps to Create Policy Based Routing in MikroTik Router

As like the above simple office network diagram, I hope, you have dual WAN connections in
your MikroTik router as well as a number of hosts are connected to this MikroTik router to
access internet. Now I will show you how to create routing policy in your MikroTik router so
that half of your LAN users will get internet through WAN1 connection and another half of your
LAN users will get internet through WAN2 connections. That means, how you can make a load
balancing network over these two gateways.

The whole configuration to apply policy based routing for making a load balancing network with
MikroTik router can be divided into 5 steps.

1. Assigning WAN and LAN IP addresses.


2. DNS Server Configuration
3. NAT Configuration
4. Mangle Rule Creation
5. Route Configuration

Now I will explain all the above steps in my rest of this article for configuring a load balancing
network over multiple gateways.

Step 1. Assigning WAN and LAN IP Addresses

For configuring a perfect load balancing network with policy based routing, first you have to
assign WAN and LAN IP addresses in your MikroTik Router. As you have two ISP connections,
you must have two WAN IP addresses as well as two gateway addresses. For the configuration
of this article, I am using below two WAN IP addresses and two gateway addresses for different
ISP connections.

1. WAN1 IP Address:22.15.221/24 and Gateway: 172.22.15.1


2. WAN2 IP Address:168.168.210/24 and Gateway: 192.168.168.254

I am using these WAN IP addresses and Gateway addresses for the configuration of this article
as well as my video tutorial that I have uploaded in my channel, but in practical your WAN IP
addresses and Gateway addresses must be different and these will be provided by your ISP
Company. However, you also have a LAN network with a large number of hosts. For the
configuration of this article, I am assuming the LAN IP block and gateway address will be like
below.

1. IP Block:168.10.0/24
2. Gateway:168.10.254

We have got our WAN IP addresses and LAN IP block. Now I will show you how to assign
these WAN IP addresses and LAN gateway address in your MikroTik router. Follow my bellow
steps to assign WAN and LAN IP addresses in your MikroTik router.

1. Login to your MikroTik router with Winbox software. If you don’t have Winbox software in your
collection, download Winbox from this site and then login to your MikroTik with username and
password. If you are new in this article as well as in MikroTik router, follow my article about
MikroTik router basic configuration which will show you the proper steps to configure a
MikroTik router from very beginning.
2. Go to IP > Addresses menu item from the winbox menu bar. Address List window will appear.
3. Now click on add new button (PLUS Sign). New Address window will appear. Put your WAN1 IP
address (in this article: 172.22.15.221/24) in Address input box and choose WAN1 interface (in
this article: ether1) from Interface drop-down menu and then click Apply and OK button.
4. Similarly, click on add new button again and put your WAN2 IP address (in this article:
192.168.168.210/24) in Address input field and choose WAN2 interface (in this article: ether2)
from Interface drop-down menu and then click Apply and OK button.
5. Again, click on add new button and put your LAN gateway IP (in this article: 192.168.10.254/24)
in Address input field and choose your LAN interface (in this article: ether10) from Interface
drop-down menu and then click Apply and OK button.
Assigning WAN and LAN IP addresses has been completed. Now we will configure DNS server
in our next step.

Step 2. DNS Server Configuration

DNS is not a mandatory configuration in MikroTik router but it is necessary for a complete
MikroTik router configuration. Optionally, you can turn your MikroTik router into a DNS server
which will be beneficial for your network. So, if you want to set DNS IP in your MikroTik router
as well as want to turn your MikroTik into a DNS server, follow my below simple steps.

1. Go to IP > DNS menu option. DNS Settings window will appear. Put your DNS server IP that is
provided to you by your ISP or you can use Google public DNS server IP 8.8.8.8 in Servers input
field.
2. Optionally, you can click on Allow Remote Requests checkbox to turn your MikroTik router into a
DNS server. But you have to block DNS requests from outside of your LAN otherwise your
MikroTik will be used as a DNS server by the public users if they know your MikroTik public IP.
Follow my article about MikroTik router basic configuration which will show you how to block
DNS requests from public network.
3. Now click Apply and OK button.

Our DNS configuration in MikroTik router has been completed. Now we will create masquerade
NAT rule so that our LAN user can access internet through our MikroTik router.

Step 3. NAT Configuration

Now we will create a masquerade NAT rule so that our LAN IP can be NATed by MikroTik
router. If we don’t create this rule, our LAN users cannot access internet through our MikroTik
router. So, follow my bellow steps to create NAT rule in MikroTik router.

1. Go to IP > Firewall Firewall window will appear. Click on NAT tab in this window and then click
on add new button (PLUS Sign). New NAT Rule window will appear.
2. Under General tab, choose srcnat from Chain drop-down menu and put your LAN IP block
address (in this article: 192.168.10.0/24) in Address input field. Now click on Action tab and
choose masquerade from Action drop-down menu and then click Apply and OK button.

NAT rule configuration in MikroTik router has been completed. Now we will create Mangle
rules in our MikroTik router so that our LAN user can be divided into two groups.

Step 4. Mangle Rule Creation

As we want to send our LAN users through two ISP connections for load balancing, we have to
create Mangle rules which will divide our LAN users into two groups and mark them for proper
routing. In this article, I am using a class C IP block which is 192.168.10.0/24 for our LAN
users. This IP block can be divided into two groups by subnetting like below.

1. Group A:168.10.0/25
2. Group B:168.10.128/25

By doing this subnetting, our total users are now divided into two groups. The users who will use
IP address between 192.168.10.1 to 192.168.10.126 will have in group A and those who will use
IP address between 192.168.10.129 to 192.168.10.253 will have in group B. Now, I will show
you two Mangle rules in MikroTik router those will do proper grouping and marking our LAN
IP. Follow below steps to create these Mangle rules.

1. Go to IP > Firewall menu and click on Mangle tab in Firewall window and then click on add new
button (PLUS Sign). New Mangle Rule window will appear now.
2. Choose prerouting option from Chain drop-down menu and put Group A IP block (in this article:
192.168.10.0/25) in Address input field. Click on Action tab and choose mark routing option
from Action drop-down menu and put group name (here, GroupA) in New Routing Mark input
box and uncheck the Passthrough option and then click Apply and OK button.
3. Similarly, click on add new button again and choose prerouting option from Chain drop-down
menu and put Group B IP block (here, 192.168.10.128/25) in Address input field. Now click on
Action tab and choose mark routing option from Action drop-down menu and put group name
(here, GroupB) in New Routing Mark input field and uncheck the Passthrough option and then
click Apply and OK button.

We have successfully created Mangle rules for grouping our LAN users. Now we will configure
routes in MikroTik router so that different groups can access internet through different ISP
connection.

Step 5. Route Configuration

After creating Mangle rules, now you have to configure routing so that your different user group
can use different WAN connection for accessing internet. So, follow my bellow steps to
configure your MikroTik routing properly.

1. Go to IP > Routes menu option. Route List window will appear now. Click on add new button
(PLUS Sign) from this window. New Route window will appear.
2. Put ISP1 gateway address (here, 172.22.15.1) in Gateway input field and choose your routing
mark (here, GroupA) for this gateway from Routing Mark drop-down menu and then click Apply
and OK button.
3. Similarly, click on add new button (+) and put ISP2 gateway address (here, 192.168.168.254) in
Gateway input field and choose your routing mark (here, GroupB) for this gateway from Routing
Mark drop-down menu and then click Apply and OK button.
4. Again, click on add new button (+) and put any ISP gateway (here, 172.22.15.1) and Apply and
OK button. If you don’t apply this route, your MikroTik cannot access internet.

After this configuration, your GroupA users will access internet through ISP1 gateway and
GroupB users will access internet through ISP2 gateway. So, you will get a perfect load
balancing network with this configuration. A question may arise in your mind now. Hey bro,
what will happen if any ISP connection goes down? Yeah bro, half of your users will be
disconnected from internet. As I said before, this configuration is just for load balancing but not
for redundancy. I will show in my next article how to do load balancing as well as link
redundancy with ECMP in MikroTik router. But if you do the above load balancing
configuration for your network, you have to disable Mangle rules as well as routing rules
manually if any ISP link goes down suddenly and create a new route rule for passing all users
through the active ISP gateway. If you face any problem to create a single route gateway, follow
my article about MikroTik router basic configuration which will guide you how to configure a
single route for your network.

Proper steps to make a load balancing network in MikroTik router with policy based routing
has been show step by step. If you face any problem to do above steps, watch my below video
tutorial about MikroTik Load Balancing over Multiple Gateways which will help you to make a
load balancing network in MikroTik router properly.

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