Serial T1 interface failover to Ethernet interface

[jlinville]

Will be using 3620 and 2611 each with primary serial T1 and secondary Ethernet wireless between two fixed locations. Both routers are on ends of the T1 and also the wireless network. In effect they are Point-to-point using two different circuits. Routers using RIP. Is there a way to have automatic failover if either interface/circuit drops? Is there a good example config to view this solution?

Also, is there a way to routinely direct some traffic to the secondary wireless circuit just to have a sense that it is alive and working? If all of the traffic uses the T1 I'm not sure how to monitor the wireless circuit to insure it's up & running.

Thanks in advance for you guidance.

[rsissons]

If you are running a routing protocal over both the links, then they will automatically fall over to the other link if one is lost.

RIP only uses hop count as the routing metric so both paths will have equal cost. If you want to prefer one path, then you can use the offset-list command to change the hop count or run eithe EIGRP ot OSPF which are more flexible in manipulating the metrics.

You can force traffic to use a particular path by configuring policy routing. See the following URL for an example -

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/105/36.html