Dual LAN!? A little help please..

TouchingVirus

*crys for help*

Situation is we got is two computers (one is mine and the other one is my friends). I have a dual LAN and he's got an onboard LAN and a PCI card ..so effectively we both got dual-LAN capabilities.

Both computers are using one port to connect into a LAN with internet access. IP's are dynamically assigned for this network. The problem lies in the network being capped @ 120k/sec. I can understand the internet being capped by the router but to cap the LAN seems foolish, but I dont have access to the router so there is nothing i can do about it.

The problem is the cap is annoying as hell. File-transfers that used to be 10mb/sec are now 120k/sec. Video Chats/Radmin and all that high bandwidth stuff is gone rubbish.

I thought i could use the two spare ports (one on each computer) to hook up a crossover and we'd be grand - seems not.

I've got a problem somewhere in my logic, so would anybody care to explain? Do i need a switch and 2 normal cables instead of a crossover? Do i have to bridge the connections? Should the ip's on the crossover be static or have the same gateway or ?!?

I'm a little lost but so far I've tried setting the crossover IP's to 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2 with the same subnet and i've bridged the connections to no avail..

any advice would be appreciated

tomk

I expect it's your routing table. You haven't mentioned the OS, but if it's Windows, I can't help you with details. Generally, your DHCP lease assignment will also have set your default gateway, which will be acessed through the interface attached to the LAN. Unless you specify a static route for it, traffic intended for your friend's PC on 10.0.0.x will also be sent through that default gateway, which of course won't work.

Static M.e.

Im sorry but I cant understand your situation at all. Could you clarify some points please.

"Both computers are using one port to connect into a LAN with internet access. IP's are dynamically assigned for this network. The problem lies in the network being capped @ 120k/sec. I can understand the internet being capped by the router but to cap the LAN seems foolish, but I dont have access to the router so there is nothing i can do about it."

Whats this LAN you are connecting to ? Your own switch / Hub ??
Describe your exact setup

Are you also trying to connect to your friends PC through your 2nd network cards? Why if you are already connected to a network ?

What is the speed of your friends 2nd network card ? is it a new card or and old card ? 1Gb / 100 / 10 etc

"I've got a problem somewhere in my logic, so would anybody care to explain? Do i need a switch and 2 normal cables instead of a crossover?" No a crossover is what you need to connect two PCs back to back.

"Do i have to bridge the connections? Should the ip's on the crossover be static or have the same gateway or ?!?" You can set both 2nd network cards to the IP address range. Give them both Static IPs
IE
PC1 IP Address 10.10.10.1 Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
PC1 IP Address 10.10.10.2 Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Disconnect your other network cards first and make sure first of all you can connect through your 2nd Network cards.
Post Results.

Is this a home / work / College setup

Stephen

Sounds to me like a college setup where they've used QoS at the switch to cap everyone's speed. Seems like a bit of a cack-handed way to go about it.

TouchingVirus

Static M.e. wrote:

Im sorry but I cant understand your situation at all. Could you clarify some points please.

"Both computers are using one port to connect into a LAN with internet access. IP's are dynamically assigned for this network. The problem lies in the network being capped @ 120k/sec. I can understand the internet being capped by the router but to cap the LAN seems foolish, but I dont have access to the router so there is nothing i can do about it."

Whats this LAN you are connecting to ? Your own switch / Hub ??
Describe your exact setup

Are you also trying to connect to your friends PC through your 2nd network cards? Why if you are already connected to a network ?

What is the speed of your friends 2nd network card ? is it a new card or and old card ? 1Gb / 100 / 10 etc

"I've got a problem somewhere in my logic, so would anybody care to explain? Do i need a switch and 2 normal cables instead of a crossover?" No a crossover is what you need to connect two PCs back to back.

"Do i have to bridge the connections? Should the ip's on the crossover be static or have the same gateway or ?!?" You can set both 2nd network cards to the IP address range. Give them both Static IPs
IE
PC1 IP Address 10.10.10.1 Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
PC1 IP Address 10.10.10.2 Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Disconnect your other network cards first and make sure first of all you can connect through your 2nd Network cards.
Post Results.

Is this a home / work / College setup

My Exact Setup :

PC1 (Mine)

Dual-Gigabit onboard Network Interface.

1 port is used to plug into the wall using a standard Cat5e cable (for internet)
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.106
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

1 port is used to plug into PC2/Slot2 using a crossover cable
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

PC2 (Friends)

Dual-Gigabit onboard network interface
1 port is used to plug into the wall using a standard Cat5e cable (for internet)

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.110
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

1 port is used to plug into PC2/Slot2 using a crossover cable

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :


The wall connections go downstairs to a router. I am fully aware that by knowing my friends IP address we could play games/file share etc @ the full 100MBiT speed.

4 weeks ago, the speed for the internal network was capped at 120k/sec by the a$$hole landlord. I still have full 4mbit access to the internet, but any filesharing/gaming to my roommate (or indeed anybody else on the network) runs at a solid 120k/sec and no more.

I have no access to this router downstairs so i cant do sod all to change its settings. I have tried to have the internal cap lifted to no avail.

What i want to achieve is a setup by which all internet traffic or whatever will go through port 1 (hooked up to the wall) and my FTP server/Game servers will go through port 2 of my NIC.

It can be done if I stop the servers, disable port 1, start the servers (they will bind to port 2) then restart port 1 ...this is a major hassle though and surely there is an easier way.

By the way, this is a home/apartment setup (off-campus), not a cack-handed attempt at bypassing a college cap

Foxwood

Open a command prompt and type ROUTE PRINT.

This should give you a list of the routes that are defined on the system, and what interfaces they use.

You should check the routes on both machines, and, if necessary, create a route that puts the 10.* traffic on the 2nd NIC. (It may already be on the 2nd NIC on one of the machines, but not on the other - you'll need to check bith machines).

Note that the 2nd NIC may actually be Interface 3, as the loopback address (127.0.0.1) is interface 1 on my machine, and my ethernet card is actually listed as interface 2.

If you run ROUTE on it's own, it will give you information on the command line options - once you get it working, you'll need to use -p to make it persistent.

TouchingVirus

Foxwood wrote:

Open a command prompt and type ROUTE PRINT.

This should give you a list of the routes that are defined on the system, and what interfaces they use.

You should check the routes on both machines, and, if necessary, create a route that puts the 10.* traffic on the 2nd NIC. (It may already be on the 2nd NIC on one of the machines, but not on the other - you'll need to check bith machines).

Note that the 2nd NIC may actually be Interface 3, as the loopback address (127.0.0.1) is interface 1 on my machine, and my ethernet card is actually listed as interface 2.

If you run ROUTE on it's own, it will give you information on the command line options - once you get it working, you'll need to use -p to make it persistent.

I'll give it a shot - thanks Foxwood :)

TouchingVirus

Foxwood wrote:

Open a command prompt and type ROUTE PRINT.

This should give you a list of the routes that are defined on the system, and what interfaces they use.

You should check the routes on both machines, and, if necessary, create a route that puts the 10.* traffic on the 2nd NIC. (It may already be on the 2nd NIC on one of the machines, but not on the other - you'll need to check bith machines).

Note that the 2nd NIC may actually be Interface 3, as the loopback address (127.0.0.1) is interface 1 on my machine, and my ethernet card is actually listed as interface 2.

If you run ROUTE on it's own, it will give you information on the command line options - once you get it working, you'll need to use -p to make it persistent.

Foxwood - You're an absolute LEGEND! Thanks a million

Foxwood

TouchingVirus wrote:

Foxwood - You're an absolute LEGEND! Thanks a million

As a matter of interest, post the actual command that you ended up using.

I've used route commands on other operating systems, but I've never needed to use it on an XP machine, so it would be useful to have a working examle here in the archives.

TouchingVirus

route -p add 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2 if 0x3

route -p add <dest_ip> <gateway_ip> <interface_3>

Did the same (reversed IP's of course) on the other computer and voila - works like a charm