Clueless: Multi-WAN Monitoring - Vantages

[bondskin]

Hi,

Version 2.6.0 here

The dashboard told me that I can add a probe for my backup WAN (U5G)

But I don't understand the options and what to do / what to enter.

Is there a guidance for that?

Probing my WAN1 is working as expected.

Thx

[tvancott42]

I think the conditional help messaging below might have missed an important point that it should be leading with, and that's my regression if so. Two things, can you show me the whole Help section below there and what it reads?

But, the easiest way to do Multi-WAN Monitoring is to deploy a supplemental monitoring agent to your gateway, which you'll see the guidance for in Settings -> Multi-Site

[bondskin]

Sure, this was my journey

I started with your amazing app prior to the agent deployment, so might have missed awesome features.

And this probing option makes sense to me for my setup, but the help text and the fields are not easy to understand for me, sorry.

I'll have a look at the multi-site section, never checked it as I run only one site with two WAN lines.

[tvancott42]

You pointed out a gaping hole in the UX here, and it's one I thought I covered, but it's actually very confusing. But yes, if you go to Settings - Multi-Site it'll steer you to add the gateway agent if you have multiple WANs on the current site.

I've got some enhancements to the help text and an outer dismissible help text in the Vantages area that will help people with this next patch release. Thank you.

[bondskin]

Thanks again.
For the sake of clarity, it's confusing to create access to my existing UDM-SE as the access is already available.

In the next step, to deploy the agent, is my understanding correct, that I need to create a docker container to let it run?
So a container, on my Homelab?

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ozark-Connect/NetworkOptimizer/main/scripts/agent/install-docker.sh | bash -s --
--server "https://xxd"
--token "noa_yys"

[tvancott42]

Gateway agent is the way to go for main site monitoring for additional WAN, that's why the UX is steering that way. Trust me, it's lightweight, so much easier to maintain and setup. Tested on my whole fleet for a month now.

Setting up more docker containers and doing policy-based routing is the painful way to do this, that's why the UX dissuades people from doing it that way.

The second you install the on-gateway agent, this whole process becomes much simpler and you can optionally move your primary WAN probing over there.

The gateway agent does not do SNMP probing or proxying unless you tick on those options. Leave "An agent collects for this site" unchecked and all the gateway agent will do is provide multi-WAN probing.

[bondskin]

zero issues regarding a container, I have enough already.
Happy to continue.

[tvancott42]

Should be easy enough then, you've got the format right. There's an LXC script too. But the key is: the agent needs its own MAC on the LAN so UniFi Network can use a Policy-Based Route to route it out the WAN you want to monitor. Adding that PBR is guided in the UX but ultimately up to you to create for each agent.

You can also bind multiple IPs (macvlan or however you want to do it) to one agent to monitor N WANs, one PBR w/ the IP-MAC per agent-WAN. But that infrastructure is kind of left up to the user.

It's too complicated for 99% of people which is why the UX steers toward on-gateway agent.

[bondskin]

I always love and embrace a new project :)

[jimstrang]

I initally had the same thought too- no issues with a separate container, but realized it would create the headache of 1. creating policy-based rules on the unifi side and 2. introducing additional physical equipment (NICs, switches, etc.) and latency between the monitor and the WAN connections. I ended up setting up the gateway agent to monitor my primary WAN and my U5G backup. It was easy I promise!

[tvancott42]

@jimstrang guessing you ran through it before the new UX was pushed out. But if you ever run through it again let me know if what I added was helpful. It's all conditionally gated so you would only see it again for additional sites.

Thanks for the feedback either way, amazing

[jimstrang]

Just went through the setup again now on latest- much smoother! I must've caught it on the initial iteration