Hosting Single Machine Server in 2 IP's Possible?

[Leckbush]

Hi, We have a client that requires us to have a backup IP. But that is not configured on our infrastructure. Is that possible? How we can do it? Thank you.

[omarrodriguezt]

If the IP is not in your infrastructure I suggest a redirect from that IP to your site.

[Leckbush]

Well we have static we use, So what he mean is a another IP incase the other one failed, right?

[omarrodriguezt]

Correct. This is what I suggest.

[Leckbush]

So Can I put Vicibox behinda PFsense (which pfsense configured to switch auto to other ISP when main One fail) just port forward what needed to be port forward?

[williamconley]

Note that you are likely referring to a 2nd ISP not just a 2nd IP address. If the connection to your ISP is broken, all IPs on that connection are down. In fact, if the connection to your ISP is down, the entire block/area may be down so a 2nd wire to the same ISP is pointless. Thus when most clients say "2nd IP", what they really mean is 2nd network connection.

Major Colocation Facilities will have Two to Ten physical connections to multiple providers/networks. If one goes down, they route traffic through the others. A
"Virtual IP" situation can even be set up (with some very hefty equipment costs) that even allow an IP expected to arrive through a "dead" provider to route instead through a different provider. This is not cheap, or something you'll likely be doing without an eight figure budget.

But multiple ISP/IP providers is doable.

Can be managed in several fashions:

1) pfSense is possible, but complicated. Some get lost in the challenge. Not gonna get into it, but I can say that we've had several clients over the years who had networking issues and the solution was to remove pfSense and *poof* everything works. We've also had many clients who were successful, so ... it's purely a question of whether you can handle multiple PBX connections through a pfSense system (control and audio require different ports for one call, it can confuse pfSense).

2) Dual Connection Router! There are many routers capable of "shunting" when a primary network signal drops. Drawback: Asterisk SIP connections require sip.conf to have a value for "externip" which is the public IP of the server. When the primary dies and the backup takes over, that value will be wrong and calls will fail. So adjusting that value during a "primary down" will be required.

3) Extra NIC in the server, second direct ISP connection (with 2nd IP) on the Vicidial server. This is doable, but requires special networking configuration in the OS to work properly. There will be challenges that will need to be dealt with, such as externip again.

4) Heavy Duty Router: Network professionals (often with Cisco certification) can build special routing tables for almost any situation, including double physical networks. This requires a more high-end router and is usually reserved for backbone systems (since "The Internet" is designed for auto-failover). Those routers generally run $2k-$25k, depending on capacity and features, and often require special training to configure.

[mstopkey]

Greetings,
We do this with 2X PfSense firewall/routers and 2 ISP's. Yes, as William stated for true redundancy, you need two ISP's.
PfSense is complicated but very powerful and much more cost effective than other router solutions. Plenty of community support for it also.
It is worth while to become proficient with PfSense.
Just my2 cents.

P.S.
If interested in a Cisco solution, I have a Cisco 3800 with extra dual 1Gb NIC card available since converting to PfSense.

[williamconley]

It is worth while to become proficient with PfSense.

But don't do it when it's mission-critical. Learn to get PBX signalling and audio through pfSense to TWO Different PBXs without a deadline. After that works, remember that the pc running pfSense should never overload (don't run a bunch of stuff on it: if it overloads, all your traffic will be compromised!).

[mstopkey]

Most definitely. We use PfSense appliances exclusively. Always buy more power than you think you need. It's cheap.

[Leckbush]

Well our pfsense is i3 2100 4gb RAM and the system is on Mirror - 2 HDD.

The NIC card we use is dedicated intel gigabit not the integrated. Is that fine? We'll updgrade it once we can do it

[williamconley]

Well our pfsense is i3 2100 4gb RAM and the system is on Mirror - 2 HDD.

That is half of the equation. What else is installed in that machine? If nothing, you're good to go.

The NIC card we use is dedicated intel gigabit not the integrated. Is that fine? We'll updgrade it once we can do it

Also half of the equation. Note that the brand or "built-in" is irrelevant. Gigabit is cool, but what about the 2nd NIC? And the 3rd? You gotta have at least two and should probably have three for a setup like this.

One for ISP one. One for ISP two. One for the connection to the Vicidial server (and may be best to have two for the connections to the Vicidial server, but that depends on how you set it up).

Worthy of note: If one of your NICs dies, anything expected to travel through that NIC is now dead. That would be a shame if the purpose of the redundant IP is to avoid downtime in case of failure, no?

[Leckbush]

Well yes no install any 3rd party on pfsense. Just pfsense.

NIC about to install is intel dual port card. and I can get a another nic card for the dialer too.

Yes the only purpose of this setup is to have less down time. I predict when all setup is test and done, when isp1 is down we can switch the connection in under 2 minutes or less.

[Leckbush]

NIC setup will be -

(Giga)Integ-LAN = Back Up ISP - I put it on integrated because most likely when we switch to back up its temporary. Based on average downtime on our main ISP, we have downtime once or nothing in 2 months or so.

(Giga) Intel DUAL PORT =
Port 1 = MAIN ISP
Port 2 = LAN