One of the requested new features added to Firmware 8.0 onward is an option that lets you configure what default action to take when the selected WAN connections used in the outbound policy are not available.
Up until now, when WAN connections that are selected in a certain Outbound Policy become unavailable, the outbound policy would be ignored.
The data that matches this specific outbound policy will then naturally use any available WAN connection.
But this is not always desirable.
Therefore, we have added options to allow you to decide what happens.
The configurable options available are
- Drop the TrafficTraffic will be discarded.
- Use Any Available Connections Traffic will be routed to any available Connection, even if it is not selected.
- Fall-through to Next Rule Traffic will continue to match the next Outbound Policy as if this rule is inactive.
Use case:
To illustrate the use consider the following situation as an example:
We have a Peplink with 3 WAN sources, with a different cost for the bandwidth (2 x DSL and 1 x satellite).
The high cost (satellite) WAN connection should not be used for certain types of traffic (everything but SMTP and POP, for example).
Previously, using outbound policies when the DSL WAN’s used in that policy became (temporary) unavailable.the traffic was either:
- using one WAN only when using the “enforced“ algorithm or
- still using the expensive satellite WAN connection when using other algorithms
In the above case, the new option will allow you to decide what to do when no connections used in the Outbound Policy are available, making sure only the desired WAN connections are used under any circumstance.
