how to route traffic in a 3 NIC server

[Thomas Trinh]

Hi,

I'm running a W2K3 server with 3 NICs. 2 NICs have their gateways pointing
to the Internet firewall while the 3rd NIC has the gateway pointing to the
Database firewall (which doesn't have Internet access).

The problem I'm having right now is that the server can't go out to the
Internet. I've already assigned a metric of 1 and 10 to the 2 NICs pointing
to the Internet Firewall. The DB NIC has metric of 20.

How do I force the Internet traffic to use the 2 NICs pointing to the
Internet firewall?

TIA

Tom

 

[Thomas]

Hi,

Here's more detail on it.

NIC1 IP: 192.168.4.2
Gateway: 192.168.4.1
Metric 1

NIC2 IP: 192.168.4.3
Gateway: 192.168.4.1
Metric 10

DB NIC: 192.168.8.2
Gateway: 192.168.8.1
Metric 20

Also, I've just installed Windows 2003 SP1. Don't know if that has effect
on it. This configuration worked fine for a few months already. Don't know
why it's failing now.

Tom

 

[Guest]

Is there a reason you are trying to have 2 NICs on the same subnet and
pointing to the same gateway? Try disabling one of those nics and see what
happens.

 

[Robert L [MS-MVP]]

you should not use the same IP range for two NICs in the same computer. check this page for more details,

rras with 2 nics messes up whole system
Case Study - RRAS with 2 NICs messes up whole system. Situation: A company just
upgraded their peer to peer network to domain network. ...
www.howtonetworking.com/casestudy/rrasissue1.htm


Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.
Don't send e-mail or reply to me except you need consulting services. Posting on MS newsgroup will benefit all readers and you may get more help.
Hi,

I'm running a W2K3 server with 3 NICs. 2 NICs have their gateways pointing
to the Internet firewall while the 3rd NIC has the gateway pointing to the
Database firewall (which doesn't have Internet access).

The problem I'm having right now is that the server can't go out to the
Internet. I've already assigned a metric of 1 and 10 to the 2 NICs pointing
to the Internet Firewall. The DB NIC has metric of 20.

How do I force the Internet traffic to use the 2 NICs pointing to the
Internet firewall?

TIA

Tom

 

[Thomas]

Thanks for the reply.

The reason I have 2 NICs on the same subnet and pointing to the same gateway
is because the NIC1 with metric of 1 is used by IIS and hosting a website.
NIC2, with metric of 10 is used for remote desktop and file transfer. I
don't want to clog up NIC1 since it will have Internet traffic from outside
users.

I have just disabled NIC2 and it seems to be working fine. Will update you
guys if anything goes wrong. Keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks again.

Thomas

 

[Jetro]

To clog up 10/100 Mbps NIC you should have six T-1 (1.5 Mbps) / doubled T-3
(43 Mbps) carrier at least. In case you sit on the Internet backbone and do
have that and more bandwidth then move second NIC to separate subnet
otherwise disable/remove it as it has been said already. Basically modern
network subsystem is not a bottleneck.