Static Routes (Version 10.6 and later)

One of the most common questions asked about is how to override the default load-balancing behavior of the Ecessa device. This can be done by implementing a Static Route or Static Route Policy. Both types function basically the same, except Static Route Policies allow you to specify traffic by port as well as coming before regular Static Routes in the routing table. Here are some scenarios that could require setting up a Static Route:

1) The traffic can only traverse your MPLS, because it’s routed, create a Fixed Static Route with your MPLS as the WAN line.

2) Mail traffic has to correspond to is rDNS Resource Record, in the case create a Fixed Static Route that appropriately classifies mail traffic for the WAN lines that corresponds to the rDNS record.  A common way to classify mail traffic to use a Static Policy Route with TCP and SMTP port 25.

3) VPN’s may have a preferred WAN to use first, in this case create a Basic Static Route with Failback type selected and VPN checked.  This will make sure the VPN is forced to connect on the preferred WAN line.  If that WAN line is down we will force it to use the line that was failed over to.  When the preferred WAN comes back up we will fail back and force the use of the preferred WAN for the VPN’s path.

Static Route Configurations

High Priority - Configurable

The routes with this priority will be placed before all the internal routing that is done on the device. This can be dangerous, since it can potentially block access to the device or cause other unintended results.

Internal Routing

This section can be opened to see all the internal routing that is located on the device. This is useful to see what routes are set up for other features.

Medium Priority - Configurable

The routes with this priority will be placed before the WAN routing that is done on the device.

WAN Routing

The WAN routing ensures that traffic that comes in on a WAN stays on the same WAN, and traffic that is already associated with a session continues to stay on that same WAN.

Low Priority - Configurable

This is the default location for static routes. This is the recommended priority to have for static routes.

Types of Static Routes

1) Fixed – only go over the WAN(s) specified, if those WAN(s) are down, drop the traffic.

2) Failover – use that WAN while it’s up, if it goes down fail over to another WAN.

3) Failback – similar to failover except when the preferred WAN comes back up, fail back to that WAN.

4) Hostname Failback – failback using a hostname (resolved via DNS) to set which WANs to fail over to, and fail back preference.

5) VPN Static Route (only available for Static Routes) – this will force outbound  and inbound VPN traffic relating to this static route to use the selected WAN.

6) Bridged - the keyword bridged can be entered into the Route field. This denotes a bridged route that when active leaves the traffic in whatever bridge it's passing through.

Static Route NAT

Static Routes generally NAT by default.  If you want the traffic to go out with no NAT, the LAN or Next Hop Route (NHR) in question should have the correct WAN to Route Via selected in the LAN or NHR configuration sections.