Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Load-Balancing with HSRP

Problem

You want to load-balance your traffic between two (or more) HSRP routers.

Solution

You can configure HSRP so that both routers are always in use if they are available. This allows you to use your network resources more efficiently, but it is slightly more complicated to configure.

Configure the first router as follows, with two HSRP groups:

Router1#configure terminal 
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#interface FastEthernet0/1
Router1(config-if)#ip address 172.22.1.3 255.255.255.0
Router1(config-if)#standby 1 ip 172.22.1.1
Router1(config-if)#standby 1 priority 120
Router1(config-if)#standby 1 preempt
Router1(config-if)#standby 2 ip 172.22.1.2
Router1(config-if)#standby 2 priority 110
Router1(config-if)#standby 2 preempt
Router1(config-if)#exit
Router1(config)#end
Router1#

Then, on the second router, you create the same two HSRP groups, but change the priority levels from those of the first router so that Router1 is active for group 1 and Router2 is active for group 2:

Router2#configure terminal 
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router2(config)#interface FastEthernet1/0
Router2(config-if)#ip address 172.22.1.4 255.255.255.0
Router2(config-if)#standby 1 ip 172.22.1.1
Router2(config-if)#standby 1 priority 110
Router2(config-if)#standby 1 preempt
Router2(config-if)#standby 2 ip 172.22.1.2
Router2(config-if)#standby 2 priority 120
Router2(config-if)#standby 2 preempt
Router2(config-if)#exit ...