Preface

If we talk about the soft router with the best support for multi-dial, I think it should be iKuai without a doubt. The strongest I said includes four levels: the first is the support for multi-dial, the second is the good details of multi-dial, the third is the best support for multi-dial of supporting functions, and the fourth is the simple configuration logic. In fact, the last point, simple configuration logic is very important, which determines the speed of getting started for novices. At present, the two that I know of that have better support for multi-dial are openwrt/lede and iKuai, and I still need to get used to the configuration logic of openwrt/lede, but iKuai can be used directly without looking at the help, so from this point of view, iKuai configuration logic is the simplest.

A brief introduction to the interface of iFastDial

Next, let’s talk about the multi-dial function of iKuai from the above four levels (the first and second levels together).

First and second levels

Let's first take a look at the current interface of my AiKuai router:

There are currently 3 WAN ports and 1 LAN port: WAN1 is a single-line dual-dial, connected to the data LAN port of the Telecom optical modem; WAN2 is a static IP, connected to the ASUS AC86U; WAN3 is DHCP, connected to the IPTV port of the Telecom optical modem, used to receive IPTV and convert it to http via UDPXY, so that multiple clients can watch it at the same time (this content is too much to be covered in a single article, so it is omitted here).

Let's first look at the single-line multi-dial configuration of WAN1:

Because there are only 2 dials here, there are only adsl1 and adsl2 at the bottom of the above picture, and the status behind them is enabled, indicating that the dial-up is successful.

If you want to make multiple calls on a single line, you only need to select the hybrid mode based on the physical network card, and there is no limit on the number of multiple calls. If the operator's local end does not limit it, then you can make unlimited calls (dream on). The reason why I want to talk about this is that some routers can only make two calls, such as ASUS routers, and the functions are very minimal:

In addition to single-line multi-dial, there is another luxurious use of multiple WAN ports: multi-line multi-dial (my AiKuai had 6 network interfaces before, so I luxuriously used 3 independent network ports as WAN port 1, WAN port 2, and WAN port 3, which were connected to the optical modem data ports of China Telecom respectively, which was very arrogant). Each WAN port can dial separately. The advantage of this is that if the operator's local end has no restrictions, you can have 3 Gigabit downstream bandwidth (my home can only dial 3 at most), such as mine (actually it is useless), which is useful for some brothers who like to test the speed to see large values. However, the premise of this is that there is at least one 2.5g port or 10 Gigabit port as a LAN port (or do 3 Gigabit port link aggregation between AiKuai and the core switch of the intranet, which I did before, but later found it was useless), and the core switch of the intranet must also have at least one 2.5g port or 10 Gigabit port. Because my soft router is a full gigabit port, I used link aggregation to use 3 gigabit electrical ports and the 3 electrical ports of the intranet Huawei three-layer switch S5720-28P-SI-AC for link aggregation (which was actually useless).

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Outsider: I used to like to tinker with things. I divided the intranet into several VLANs, each VLAN had a 24-bit mask network segment, and the secondary switches in each room supported 802.1Q and were network manageable. They were connected to the core Huawei switch through 802.1Q. At the same time, the policy routing of Huawei's three-layer switch was used to manage traffic. A key requirement here was IPTV. One of the main reasons for dividing VLANs in the past was to connect the Telecom optical modem IPTV on the sofa wall (a separate VLAN connected to the core Huawei switch) and the Telecom set-top box on the TV wall (a VLAN with the same ID connected to the secondary switch on the TV wall) through VLAN. Therefore, the secondary switch on the TV wall needed to support VLAN and 802.1Q for connecting to the core Huawei switch). Later, I got tired of it. After an upgrade, iQiyi directly supported UDPXY, and VLAN isolation was no longer required. One VLAN could achieve multi-device playback.

The playback effect after installing APTV on the Apple TV in the living room:

I installed APTV on an Apple TV in the living room and the master bedroom. I also installed APTV on my iPhone, iPad, Mac Mini, and Macbook, so I can watch TV anytime (although I never watch it, but as a technical person, having it is one thing, and not watching it is another). For the specific implementation steps, please refer to my other article:iQiyi Router Series realizes all-media playback of Telecom IPTV

I have gone off topic. Since the core demand for VLAN was no longer there, I optimized it a little bit. The core switch was replaced with a TPLINK 24-port manageable switch (the fan of Huawei switch was too noisy), and the VLAN configurations of other secondary switches were deleted. I just used it as a point-and-shoot switch, which made the network environment simpler.

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The WAN2 port is connected to the ASUS AC86U router (classic model, with good software support, whether it is Merlin firmware or other special plug-ins) with a static IP. I dialed the number again on the AC86U, and all 3 dials have been used up.

Compared with the multi-dial settings of openwrt/lede, I think Aikuai is simpler and clearer, with simpler logic.

The third level: the multi-dial function of the supporting functions is well supported

What does this mean? In fact, if you think about it, you will understand. After multi-dial is successful, many functions need to support multi-dial, such as:

Port Mapping

Surely we need to be able to specify port mappings on different egress routes?

You can map all of them together or map one or several of them individually. You can choose

Traffic diversion

Multi-line load

This is the most basic way of diversion:

Protocol splitting:

Port splitting:

Domain name diversion:

Uplink and downlink traffic diversion:

Intelligent flow control:

In terms of flow control, iFly is very powerful, but unfortunately, these functions are only useful in multi-dial environments or multi-WAN port environments. Generally, if there is only one egress link, these functions are not useful.

Dynamic Domain Name

This one is really strong:

iKuai's dynamic domain name supports multiple domain name providers:

Commonly used Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, CloudFlare, and Peanut Shell all support this function. This function is very useful for setting up a home data center, which we will talk about later.

monitor

In fact, there are other additional functions that support multiple lines, but we will not discuss them one by one. The above ones have already satisfied most netizens.

The Fourth Plane

In fact, from the above configuration pages, we can see that the configuration logic of AiKuai is in line with the habits of Chinese people. You can basically understand it at a glance. If you don’t understand the meaning of some options, you can just look at the online help. So from the configuration level, it is really very simple. But unfortunately, if there is no multi-line environment, many advantages of AiKuai cannot be brought into play. In addition, if netizens want to achieve more functions on a single device, such as expanding certain functions through plug-ins, AiKuai does not directly support it (why not directly? AiKuai supports virtual machines and docker, which can indirectly achieve some functions), so I just say that AiKuai is the strongest "multi-dial soft router" (in fact, the multi-dial function of openwrt is also good, mainly because I think the configuration logic is weird, awkward, and uncomfortable to use).

The free version of iQuick supports so many functions, which is very conscientious. And the online help document is very good, and those with technical background can understand it at a glance. Finally, if you encounter problems, you can open a case, although the support is not timely. In short, I have also used many systems, including dd-wrt, openwrt, and Merlin, and finally chose iQuick as the main router for the export of my home data center.

AiKuai has many other great features, which I will talk about separately in another article.