Ethernet bridging

[TriplexDread]

Whats the score on bridging two internal ethernet conns to share an internet connection?

I've tryed but never get a connection shared. Probs doin summat wrong!
Or is bridging only for a LAN not WAN/ICS

 

[CITech]

Bridged NICs

Most people bridge their connections to ensure connectivity, ie. 2 NICs in your PC connect to 2 ports on the back of your router. If you lose one NIC you still have an established connection to your router, although the chances are you will only have one connection from your router to the outside world!

Alternatively, if you are looking for high capacity transfers between your machine and other local PCs / Servers, bridging will increase your capacity, so long as your router has sufficient overhead to make use of the bridged input.

The chances are that unless you are running a server farm, you will only be interested in the first option above. Just one piece of advise if you do bridge your NICs, the resultant connection may indicate a speed which is not really attainable. For example, I linked 2 GigaBit cards, potentailly giving me a 2GB backbone onto a 10/100 switch. The machine faithfully told me that it was putting thru' a capacity of 1GB Duplex, even though there is no way on God's earth that the switch could handle it!

You have been warned!

 

[TriplexDread]

Cheers dude

I was basically wondering if i could use both LAN ports on my main pc

1 for main connection to modem
1 for connection to second PC

to share my internet connection instead of using my Router?
Hense the bridging, altho i wasnt really sure what the bridging of connections was for thta is why i asked

 

[CITech]

I have to confess that I've never tried that sort of setup. I always but everything through a switch or hub, and then channel it into the router.

I don't think bridging is what you need, because that effectively combines the NICs into one so the data can be shared between the two (to increase the capacity) or revert to either connection in the event of one NIC failing.

I suppose you could use the two connections for independence like you suggested so long as "connection sharing" is enable on the primary machine. I'd be interested to see what you come up with, let me know

 

[TriplexDread]

I did try but it couldnt assign IP #'s to connections

Dont really wanna leave Sharing on with main machine due to no router.
Might just hav to switch router back on I guess. It was only for running second PC for crunching tho. I'm probs doin alrite tho the way I shot up all those places recently..

We'll c

Thanks for the pointers tho m8

 

[CITech]

I did try but it couldnt assign IP #'s to connections

Are you using DHCP or static IPs?

 

[TriplexDread]

Static m8. Ip addy does not change, set by N*L

 

[CITech]

Static m8. Ip addy does not change, set by N*L

OK, well the two NICs will have separate addresses, and the bridge you create should have a third address. You need to be careful if you have any IP filters for local firewalls etc to make that all three addresses have access.

 

[tjm4fun]

What you want to do is fairly simple, except it isn;t
you need to do is setup ics (internet connection sharing) on the pc that has the web connection and the 2 nics.
This is a pretty good howto on this, plus there is a wealth of networking information on this site:
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

that should get you going.

A short summary: you add ics as a service to your existing connection to the net, and run the ics setup wizard. what this does is sets the nic attached to your local lan, in this case the other pc, to a set ip of 192.168.0.1 and starts a dhcp server on this interface. any pc plugged into this whether via a hub/switch or direct cable, will be setup as dhcp. it will be assigned the ip from the connection pc. Note to connect 2 nics directly you will need to use a crossover cable!!!