I Have a Cisco 1700 router with a serial interface connected to a PPP Connection, and a ehternet interface connected to a switch. I also have a netgear router with a vpn connection for backup connected to the switch as well. I have a static router we say 192.168.*.* going out the serial interface of the cisco. My question is how do i have the route change to go to the netgear if the serial interface goes down. example : route 192.168.0.0 goes to ethernet then out serial interface, if serial interface is down route will be redirected to the netgear router.

You would have to change the gateway address on every pc and server. This is why they make dual wan port routers [which the 1700 can do] so if one route goes down and fails over to the alternate' uses never see a difference. Their gateway address doesn't change. In your case you would need two gateway addresses in each pc and I don't know of a way to do that in tcp/ip properties even with the alternative tab. It would be easy if you have a dhcp server. You would reset the gateway in dhcp and then get everyone to renew. Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

I need the network to come up on its own, There has to be a way if the cisco interface goes down that it will reroute to the next static route or have a new gateway of last resort if interface goes down. I now RIP Protocol among Cisco routers can do this.

Also the all wan ports on Cisco router is used.I am using the 1721 model. what if I had two routes would this work ip route 10.20.130.254 255.255.255.0 SERIAL0.100 ip route 10.20.130.254 255.255.255.0 10.20.30.250 if SERIAL0.100 goes down wouldn't it use the second route ?

what you are saying is possible by using two static routes, one that has an administrative distance of 1, while another one has administrative distance of any "value" thats higher than "1" so back to your question ip route 10.20.130.254 255.255.255.0 SERIAL0.100 *the one that has administrative distance of 1 * ip route 10.20.130.254 255.255.255.0 10.20.30.250 "100" as you can see, i added the number "100" in the end of the second static route. the number 100 is not just any oridinary number, the number 100 means that static route will have administrative distance of "100", you can also call that static route as "floating static route" what i mean by floating static route is when you type show ip route, it will not show up in the routing table UNLESS your first static route go down. And the reason is the administrative distance cisco routers or any high-end routers choose routes based on Prefix first, administrative distance second, and metric third. Since the first static route has a lower AD than the second route, it will be used instead. Unless something happened to the subinterface0.100, secondary static route will not show up in the routing table.

F.Y.I. There is a alternative method but it won't work in your case because i am pretty sure your netgear router does not support this. its called HSRP (short for Hot Standby Router Protocol), your cisco 1700 router can do this while your netgear router can't. What it does is it creates a virtual router between two routers or switches, and you will have to point your workstation or server's default gateway to the virutal router's address. Since its a virtual router, it will never go down. its an excellent solution for what you wanted, but too bad your netgear router doesn't support it.

evil_lbt, worked just as I hoped, thanks you, and wanderer, for all the great help