INTRODUCTION
Route Sentry is specially designed for South Africans who want to make use of 2
ADSL accounts on the same PC at the same time, with the one account being used
for local access only and the other for international. Most people are put off
using such a setup due to the inconvenience of having to manually set up the IP
routing tables after each new connection (due to ISPs allocating dynamic IP
addresses). Route Sentry makes it easy.
It will monitor your 2 connections and automatically route South African traffic
through the “local” account while directing all other traffic through the
“international” account. It will automatically reconnect if either connection is
dropped (which at the moment happens at least once every 24 hrs) and keep traffic
flowing through the correct connections even if the IP addresses are changed
after reconnecting.
SETTING UP YOUR ADSL CONNECTIONS
To make use of this program you must install the RASPPPOE protocol (see
http://raspppoe.com for more info) on your PC and use it to establish “Dial Up”
style connections for each of your ADSL accounts. Please check the RASPPPOE web
site for details on exactly how to do this.
Note that your ADSL modem will have to be put into “bridge” or “modem” mode for
the protocol to work. Also note that your ADSL modem should not be configured to
automatically connect to your ISP as this may prevent the RASPPPOE protocol from
“seeing” it. It should also be noted that the modem does not have to be directly
connected to your PC as this protocol will work just as well if the modem is
connected to a hub or switch on your network. This makes it possible to share the
modem between different PCs on your network for different simultaneous PPPOE
connections.
Important: You must set the number of lines (WAN endpoints) in the PPPOE protocol
properties to 2 or more otherwise you will get an error that the device is busy
when you try to “dial” the second connection. When testing the connection for the
first time you must select the ‘save password’ option on the “Connect” dialog,
otherwise Route Sentry won’t be able to automatically connect for you.
Warning: If you previously used your ADSL modem in router mode you wouldn’t have
had to worry too much about your PC being vulnerable to internet threats as the
modem itself would have acted as a firewall. Using the modem in “modem/bridge” mode
however, means that your PC will be directly connected to the internet when next
you “dial up”, so making use of a software firewall is highly recommended (such as
the built in Windows XP firewall).
CONFIGURING ROUTE SENTRY
“Route Sentry Enabled”
Untick this to disable Route Sentry functionality.
“Local Connection to use”
Select the connection to be used for local access.
“Automatically reconnect local connection when disconnected”
If ticked Route Sentry will automatically attempt to reconnect if the connection is
dropped. It will also cause it to automatically connect when Route Sentry starts up
if the connection is not currently connected.
“Disconnect Local”/”Connect Local”
This button either connects or disconnects the local connection. Note that if
“Automatically reconnect” is ticked then the connection will be automatically
reconnected after disconnecting.
“International Connection to use”
Select the connection to be used for international access.
“Automatically reconnect international connection when disconnected”
If ticked Route Sentry will automatically attempt to reconnect if the connection is
dropped. It will also cause it to automatically connect when Route Sentry starts up
if the connection is not currently connected.
“Disconnect International”/”Connect International”
This button either connects or disconnects the international connection. Note that
if “Automatically reconnect” is ticked then the connection will be automatically
reconnected after disconnecting.
“Automatically set up routes when both connections connected”
If ticked Route Sentry will automatically configure your IP routing table to route
traffic through the appropriate connection when both connections are connected.
“Minimize on Startup”
If ticked Route Sentry will automatically minimize to the system tray on startup.
“Set up Routes Now”
Click on this button to force the routing table to be updated immediately. Note that
both connections must be active for this to work.
“Log”
Select the log tab to view status and error information.
“About”
About the program.
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