How to Configure Load Balancer

How to Configure Load Balancer

How to Configure Load Balancer TPLink ER5120

Here we will learn how to configure load balancer TPLink ER5120. In this article we will discuss all necessary configurations in detail. Let’s start with the configuration. In first step connect load balancer with the Computer via Ethernet cable. Ethernet cable plug in to LAN port of load balancer. Access load balancer with the default IP address or default web access link. After successfully login we will see below mentioned screen now let’s start with the configuration steps.

Landing Page

Click on network tab on the left side the windows screen and expand drop down menu then click on WAN (First option of the load balancer) we will configure it with two WAN Ports for the dual ISP’s (Internet Service Providers). In the WAN mode tab click on 2 and then click on save.

WAN Configurations

Now click on WAN1 and apply IP configurations of First WAN interface. Select connection type as Static IP and add IP Address, Subnet mask, Default gateway and Primary & Secondary DNS. Then click on save.

WAN 1

Now move on the WAN2 interface and apply same configurations related to the secondary ISP. We can also select it as Dynamic if we don’t have static IP address or IP address will be assigned by ISP’s. Enter all related information and click on save.

WAN 2

Now move on next step and click on LAN, here we will add IP address and subnet mask of our LAN (Local Area Network). i.e IP address 10.10.10.1 Subnet mask 255.255.255.0

LAN

Click on DHCP Server tab which is next to LAN. Here we will made DHCP server and define its pool for clients. In starting IP address we will define the first IP address of DHCP Pool for the client. Let’s suppose we will reserve first 20 IP addresses of our network then DHCP pool will be started from 10.10.10.21 and ending IP address will be 10.10.10.254. Define lease time for clients in minutes. Enter default gateway which will be our LAN address according to our network. You have to assign it according to your network. In the primary and secondary DNS we can enter our network DNS addresses if we don’t have DNS then we can use google DNS addresses in it which are 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 and click on save to save the configurations of this tab.

DHCP Server

After configuration DHCP server click on transmission tab and then on NAT (Network Address Translation). Here we will make two NAT rules for both of WAN ports with the LAN port. You can see it in the below screen shot.

NAT Rule

Now click on bandwidth control and add the bandwidth limit according to your network bandwidth. Just click on enable bandwidth control and assign bandwidth control limit as per below screenshot.

Bandwidth Control

After configuration of bandwidth control now we will configure load balancing by just enabling it and then click on save.

Enable Load Balancing

Now click on link backup tab which is very next to basic settings of load balancing tab. Here we will select which WAN interface will be primary and which will be work as a backup link. Just configure it by clicking on add and then select primary and secondary interfaces and must select failover (enable backup link when any primary WAN fails). Click on enable and save configuration by clicking on save.

Link Bsckup Screen 1

Link Backup Screen 2

In the below mentioned screenshot we can see the online and offline detection of our both WAN interfaces which we just configured and selected as primary and secondary interfaces.

Onling/Offline Status

After configuring load balancing now click on routing and here we can configure our all other Local networks if any exist. Otherwise just skip this process according to your network.

Routing

Now click on system tools and then admin setup here we will set password for our load balancer to access. Enter user name and password and click on save.

System Tools

After setting credentials on load balancer now move to the backup and restore tab of factory default restore tab from here we can take backup of all configuration of the load balancer but we will do this at the end when all configurations will be done. Here only time setting is left to configure and we can also set system log if any log server is exist in our network.

Management

In the diagnostic tab of system tools we can see few options and with the help of these options we can check and diagnose the network here are two options we can ping and trace route to any destination IP. You can see we will ping google DNS from the WAN2 interface and click on start. Result will be shown hereunder and success rate is 100%. Its mean our WAN is working fine and interface is connected to the internet.

Diagnostic

In the time setting tab here we will set time zone according to the standard time zone it will be UTC +5 for Pakistan. Here we can also give NTP server address if it exist in our network.