How to configure Policy Routing on Dual WAN Router using the new GUI

Policy Routing provides the network administrator with an accurate way to control the routing based on the policy. You could define different routing policies based on protocol, source/destination IP and source/destination port, and you could set effective time to make policy routing take effect in the specific time period.

There is an example of daily use below showing how to configure port-based policy routing on dual WAN router correctly:

A customer has a TL-ER6120 and he connects 3 computers to the LAN side of TL-ER6120 with IP address 192.168.0.2-192.168.0.4, all computers are routed to Internet by dual WAN ports, he plans to set policy routing rules for 2 computers which use 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3, make WAN1 for web surfing, WAN2 for other Internet activities, in additional, he wants these routing rules only work in 8:00-18:00 on workday. In this case, how to configure policy routing in order to meet the need of this customer?

Step 1 Set up the IP Group.

Choose the menu Preferences->IP Group->IP Address, set up the IP Address for the client which you want to apply the Policy Routing.

Bind the IP address to IP group.

Step 2 Set up the Time Range for the Policy Routing effective time.

Choose the menu Preferences->Time Range, you can define the time-range entry on this page.

Step 3 Enable Load Balancing

Choose the menu Transmission -> Load Balancing->Basic Settings. Check Enable Load Balancing.

Note: Enable Load Balancing must be enabled if you want to configure Policy routing. Otherwise Policy routing won’t work normally.

Step 4 Set up the Policy Routing rules.

Choose the menu Transmission->Routing->Policy Routing.

The router will check the rules in the list by turns from top to bottom. We can set up two rules to meet the need of the customer. The first rule is for 192.168.0.2&192.168.0.3 to route the data whose destination port is 80(Web application use) to WAN1 only. The second rule is for route all ports of 192.168.0.2&192.168.0.3 to WAN2.

The first rule is as follows.

The second rule is as follows.

Note: The mode is usually “Priority” instead of “Only”. In priority mode, before routing traffics to specific WAN, the router would check its status based on Online Detection. If the WAN were offline, data would go through the other WAN with Internet access. While under Only mode, the rule always take effects, no matter the selected WAN is online or offline. Mostly the parameter should be “Priority”.

So the customer could make sure on the computers with IP address 192.168.0.2&192.168.0.3 data is transmitted via WAN1 when his computers visit HTTP web, and via WAN2 when they download or enjoy some other Internet activities. There is no policy routing set for 192.168.0.4, so the Internet activities on that computer are routed to both WANs randomly.

Note:

1.Policy Routing can help select the appropriate WAN port for data transmission, but when the router detects the WAN1 failed, the HTTP data also will be transmitted via WAN2.

2.Router provides some common service types. If the service you need is not in the service list, you can configure the Service Type by yourself. For example, if you want to configure service of TCP 8080, you can set up as follows.

Choose the menu Preferences->Service Type. Set up the Service Type according to protocol and source/destination port.