Configure network server

Hello folks, I'm in charge of a interest project in my company but I've got into a blackout with this step:

I have to setup a Linux Network Server that has 3 network cards to do so:

• First of all, 1 card goes connect directly to 1 of the company's internet ADSL
• Then the secon network card goes to the 2nd ADSL
• And the 3rd one goes connected to a switch (where after all the configuration is made, will serve as UpLink for the Switch)
• I have to setup the server so it serves as Load Balance, Failover and Firewall between those 2 modems and switch

Now, I am here to ask you folks for some info and where to start

• Which Linux distribution would be better for so? And maybe a why answer?
• Any specific apps for what I have to do?
• Where can I read some info about my project
• Can I find some related tuts for it?

Thank you,
w0rldart

 

Some ISPs support bonding/multilink ADSL connections. Check with yours, and googling for the same will reveal some info about it. It won't give you a great deal in the way of overall redundancy, as anything that is likely to affect one connection is probably going to also affect the other (ie. your ISP or upstream has a failure). So, aggregating connections in this way is really best for simply increasing bandwidth. If redundancy is what you're after, use two ISPs. You can write some simple scripts to reset the default route as needed, but you won't get load balancing. You can use a routing protocol such as BGP for failover if you're hosting content that needs to be available.

Just about any major distribution of Linux is usable as a firewall.

 

Tnx Matty for your info but, I still need to know what I have asked.

Anybody willing / having the knowledge to share it with me?

Tnx
w0rldart

 

Not sure if it does everything you need, but you might want to take a look at IPCop: http://ipcop.org/

 

Tnx for your suggestion falko, I will give it a try... but I found this tutorial which seams to be kinda what I need

http://tetro.net/misc/multilink.html

I've attached a photo with the wireframe/skecth of my goal... maybe this will give all you a better idea of what I am trying to do.


Besides my doubts about how to configure the server to act as a load balancer, I have this next problem. I will explain it in few points (You have it represented in the image attached)

• I have 3 network cards:
  
  eth1 associated to ISP1​
  eth2 associated to ISP2​
  eth0 that acts as DNS, GW, DHCP for the clients​
  I have to associated it the IP 10.0.0.1, that will serve as GW, DNS and DHCP to network's clients.​

So my question is:

• If I assign the ip 10.0.0.1 to eth0 with the "address 10.0.0.1" command, will it server? Or I have to configure something else?

 

I recommend for all those that were / are looking to do something like I did, to give a try to pfSense. It is another solution for what I had to do