FW: MX 15.27
I am testing the "Direct Internet Access with MPLS failover" use case described under this Meraki doco.
Questions from my test:
Other question: I can't terminate MPLS/EBGP on MX because EBGP is on BETA and only supported on concentrator mode right?
I don't know the answers for sure.
>Both WAN 1 and 2 must have internet access for this to work?
My expectation is yes. If it can not get to the Internet it will consider the path to be failed.
>What if my MPLS link does not have internet access?
Then that path would be considered permanently failed and unused.
You are probably better off considering a design more like this (just ignore the AutoVPN failover part):
Here the MPLS connects via a VLAN interface on the MX instead of a WAN interface. The MPLS network does not require Internet access in this case.
About "MPLS failover to Meraki auto VPN" solution, at first sight looks great but when you go deep on it you realize that the solution is very limited. The problem is that option "Active as long as a device on the other side responds to ping" is limited to a host / interface directly reachable by the MX (same segment).
Above image has been taken from the Meraki document. Here, the MX on the left is able to check MPLS availability by pinging the interface 192.168.128.249 (cannot do it against 192.168.129.249). The problem here is that interface 192.168.128.249 can remain up even if the link is down, in which case will never choose the second route over the VPN.
Quote form the doc:
The next hop IP cannot be out the internet interface or over another static route.
Am I missing something?
You should be able to get it to work. I think below is the way to do it (although I haven't tried it), its not exactly as per the document, but hopefully should achieve the outcome you require.
The theory is this: the 'always' static route ensures that the ping to test if the host is alive is always sent via the MPLS network. If that ping test fails then the 10.0.0.0/24 route will be removed, and traffic sent via the AutoVPN. However, when the AutoVPN is being used the 'left' side pings to the 192.168.129.1 will still be sent to the MPLS (even if it is a black-hole) and never via the AutoVPN since the 'left' side doesn't know that 192.168.129.0/24 is accessible via the AutoVPN.
I think that should get you working.
Forget that - the testing against a remote host doesn't work that way; the host has to be in the subnet specified in the static route (which won't work). Looks like you have to test against the next hop, which means you're only testing for a failure of the local link, not the path all the way through to the other side.
The alternative would be to turn this into a SD-WAN solution, but in that scenario you'd either need internet access from your MPLS cloud, or to configure one end as a VPN concentrator - which means another firewall (potentially MX) required.
Thanks @Bruce .About "The alternative would be to turn this into a SD-WAN solution, but in that scenario you'd either need internet access from your MPLS cloud, or to configure one end as a VPN concentrator - which means another firewall (potentially MX) required.", that is something we do pretty often and works. There is another reason (not part of this threat) why this option is the one we need.
Any way, we finally made it work and it goes like this. For the redundant route, instead of selecting the option "While next hop respond to ping" you have to select "while host respond to ping". This host can be on the other side as long as the IP of the host (192.168.0.1) it is included in the subnet (192.168.0.0/24 )that you want to reach.
Good to hear that you use the SD-WAN method for sites where it’s applicable. With this site have you fully tested it and did it work?
I’m surprised that using a host in the destination subnet works as when the AutoVPN route takes over that host would become accessible again, and so you’d expect the route would become active and start black-holing traffic, then it would drop again, and you’d get a route flap.
If it is working, all I can assume is that the source used for the routing ‘ping’ can’t be routed into the VPN... that would be what is ‘solving the problem’ (although isn’t intuitive).
We just tested it on a lab that we created for this purpose (2 MX's and 2 routers to simulate the MPLS) but the plan is to move to production this week.
What is important to have clear is :
1.- The MPLS has to be on the LAN of the MX.
2.- To have an SDWAN tunnel up (not ordinary VPN's) using a WAN port.
3.- To understand the purpose of each route of your table, the priority of each route and to be clear what happens when one of your routes overlap another one (the redundant one). If you are not clear about the purpose of each of your routes and how they behave in every scenario, then it could not work as it should.
Thanks guys. Meraki Support has enabled this feature for me.
I will start testing soon.