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Network Switch For Multiple ISPs (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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TL;DR: Is there a way to have two different (unreliable) ISPs connected to a single network switch, so that when one drops out, the home network is automatically switched to the other ISP?

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Hi all!

I am a networking hobbyist, and I built out a home network for a family friend of mine living in Mexico. They have an ISP reliability problem I have not encountered before. Their service frequently cuts in and out, and thus they have two separate ISPs to ensure connectivity at all times.

I currently have both ISP's gateways plugged into the same unmanaged network switch. The hope is that if one ISP goes out, the switch will be smart enough to use the other one. In practice, when both ISPs are up and running, the network switch seems to flip randomly between the two of them which causes interruptions on the home network.

I would like to have both ISPs plugged in at the same time so my customer does not have to walk down to the switch swap inputs. Is this functionality I would need a mananaged switch to accomplish?

Let me know what you think, and thanks for your help!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Corporate network routers do this.

Technically you could do this with an old Cisco switch and a shell script though. The script would ping a known address on the internet from your computer. When it becomes unpingable, the script telnets into the switch and shuts the interface for the current isp and no shuts the interface for the other isp. Very hacky, but it's what I would do if I were in your situation and I'd use the old Cisco 3750 I've got laying around.