Mikrotik Scripting: Failover Routing for Asterisk PBX

Hi Guys,

today i’ll show you some scripting tricks!

Assume we have 2 Internet connection and a Mikrotik device (e.g. Mikrotik 750, Mikrotik 750GL etc.) and we want to put those connection in failover mode.

Failover mode start when Primary connection fails (e.g. ADSL link down) so we need to switch all traffic to Secondary connection.

This is easy to do with some route command, but what’s happened to Asterisk VoIP PBX?

When Asterisk loose the Primary connection, all registration to sip providers not switch automatically to Secondary connection, so the VoIP PBX stop working but internet works!

How can we solve this thing?

Let’s go scripting!

First of all i’m going to explain you the idea. we’re going to put to scripts into our device.

One that periodically do some check ping to 2 ip address. When ping is ok, we’re fine and nothing happen.

When ping fails from both address, we’ve lost connection so this is the trigger for the script.

The first script, that we’re going to call “Check Script”, disable the Primary Internet GW and send an email to alert us.

After a 3 seconds delay reboot the device.

So this is the trigger for second script, that we’re going to call “Restart Script”, that after a 10 second delay(necessary to get the device up completely) check if the Primary Internet GW is disabled (maybe you reboot the device for other purpose?!?!?) .

If Primary GW is disabled, the script assign it a rounting distance of 3 (so the Secondary became the Master Internet GW) and enable it to check if the connection come back.

If pings are now ok, restore the Primary Interface as Master by changing the distance to 1 otherwise Primary link is down for some bad reason, and connection remains on with Secondary GW.

Under this Scenario Asterisk VoIP does not stop working but remains up!

Those are the two Scripts:

CHECK SCRIPT

Source code

:global strDate [/system clock get date]
:global strTime [/system clock get time]
:global strSystemName [/system identity get name]
 
 
:if ([/ping 10.104.7.187 interface=pppoe-out1 count=5] = 0 && [/ping 8.8.4.4 interface=pppoe-out1 count=5] = 0 && [/ip route get [find comment="Primary"] disabled]=false) do={
    :log info "Disabling Primary";
    /ip route set [find comment="Primary"] disabled=yes
    /tool e-mail send from="[email protected]" to="[email protected]" subject="Route Failover - $strDate $strTime - $strSystemName" body="Failover to Telecom occurred at $strDate $strTime on $strSystemName"
    :delay 3
    /system reboot
 
} else= {
    :log info "No Failover Necessary";
}

RESTART SCRIPT

Source code

:delay 10;
:if ([/ip route get [find comment="Primary"] disabled]=true) do={
    /interface ethernet set numbers=4 disabled=no
   
     /ip route set [find comment="Primary"] disabled=no
     /ip route set [find comment="Primary"] distance=3
    :delay 10
    :if ([/ping 10.104.7.187 routing-table=Primary count=5] > 0 && [/ping 8.8.4.4 routing-table=Primary count=5] > 0) do={
 
       /ip route set [find comment="Primary"] distance=1
       /system reboot
    }
     else= {
       
        /ip route set [find comment="Primary"] distance=3
 
    }
} else= {
    :log info "No Failover Necessary";
}

Enjoy!