6

WAN Setup

This chapter describes how to configure WAN settings.

6.1 WAN Overview

A WAN (Wide Area Network) is an outside connection to another network or the Internet. See Section on page 31 for more information on the fields in the WAN screens.

6.2 Metric

The metric represents the "cost of transmission". A router determines the best route for transmission by choosing a path with the lowest "cost". RIP routing uses hop count as the measurement of cost, with a minimum of "1" for directly connected networks. The number must be between "1" and "15"; a number greater than "15" means the link is down. The smaller the number, the lower the "cost".

The metric sets the priority for the ZyXEL Device’s routes to the Internet. If any two of the default routes have the same metric, the ZyXEL Device uses the following pre-defined priorities:

•Normal route: designated by the ISP (see Section 6.5 on page 61)

•Traffic-redirect route (see Section 6.7 on page 64)

•WAN-backup route, also called dial-backup (see Section 6.8 on page 65)

For example, if the normal route has a metric of "1" and the traffic-redirect route has a metric of "2" and dial-backup route has a metric of "3", then the normal route acts as the primary default route. If the normal route fails to connect to the Internet, the ZyXEL Device tries the traffic-redirect route next. In the same manner, the ZyXEL Device uses the dial-backup route if the traffic-redirect route also fails.

If you want the dial-backup route to take first priority over the traffic-redirect route or even the normal route, all you need to do is set the dial-backup route’s metric to "1" and the others to "2" (or greater).

"IP Policy Routing overrides the default routing behavior and takes priority over all of the routes mentioned above.

 

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P-660RU-T v2 User’s Guide