homerklees

Hey folks,

Here's the thing.

I have successfully setup a network load balanced linux router using 2 net connections.

I set it up to test multi-threaded HTTP and FTP clients to effectively use the cumulative bandwidth of both connections.

Problem is, with the route cache, subsequent requests to the same host are routed out the same interface as the first everytime, so it doesn't utilize the second connection.

I can manually flush the cache using: ip route flush cache, or echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/flush. I have found these method problematic as they seem to disrupt existing tcp connections (connection resets etc). It does not disrupt all existing connections every time, and if I flush the cache manually, new connections do go out the second connection, and I get higher transfer rates on the client, but its very manual.

So basically, I need to disable the route cache, or minimize the time a route stays in the cache. I have played with various options in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route (the gc_ variables), but that usually results in routing problems

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Later.