System with two ethernet ports?

X

xcgames

Gawd
Joined
Oct 9, 2004
Messages
660
I've always wondered why some motherboard such as ASUS P5W DH DELUXE have two ethernet ports in the back?

I've also noticed server systems such as Windows Server 2003 requires:

Ethernet network interface card(Two Ethernet network interface cards recommended)
Click to expand...


So how exactly does two ethernet port works in conjunction? One IP for each port? What's the real life application for two active ethernet ports?

thanks...
 
there are a lot of things you can do with more than one interface. if you are going to install IAS on 2003, then youll need 2 ports i think. also, intel nics have software that can team to ports together (in various types of configurations). open source operating systems can bond multiple interfaces in a similar way.

a configuration that 99% of computers out there need? no... but its nice to have incase you ever do. for normal computer (and even normal server) use, just plug in one and be on your way.
 
Most common need I can see for it would be for a routing computer. Also, some IDS applications like having that second port.

It's a common enough need, and cheap enough, to include.
 
I think that's exactly what the designers had in mind; using the system to share an internet connection.
 
I have two ethernet ports and both are connected to a switch. I want to know how I can make one ethernet port my download and one my upload.
 
Volucris said:
I have two ethernet ports and both are connected to a switch. I want to know how I can make one ethernet port my download and one my upload.
Click to expand...
Why? Ethernet is full duplex.
 
Sharaz Jek said:
there are a lot of things you can do with more than one interface. if you are going to install IAS on 2003,
Click to expand...
You mean ISA server. IAS is the Microsoft RADIUS implementation.

Multiple NICs can server a couple purposes:
- Sometimes needed for routing, such as a firewall. (Though you can connect a single NIC to a trunk and make it appear to be multiple NICs)
- Fault tolerance. Two NICs can be teamed to provide fault tolerance if you have the right drivers.
- Second be used as a spare in case the first dies.
 
Volucris said:
I have two ethernet ports and both are connected to a switch. I want to know how I can make one ethernet port my download and one my upload.
Click to expand...
That's not really how Ethernet works.
 
I dunno if windows can do it, but Linux can use bonding to aggregate links in a variety of ways (rr, hashing, failover). The thing is that your switch has to be capable of handling the same MAC address on different ports in order to load-balance, if you just want failover it shouldn't matter.

Code: 
cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0
Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.0.3 (March 23, 2006)

Bonding Mode: load balancing (round-robin)
MII Status: up
MII Polling Interval (ms): 100
Up Delay (ms): 0
Down Delay (ms): 0

Slave Interface: eth0
MII Status: down
Link Failure Count: 0
Permanent HW addr: 00:18:f3:2d:35:2e

Slave Interface: eth1
MII Status: up
Link Failure Count: 0
Permanent HW addr: 00:17:31:68:16:e0
 
i have 2 nics in my work pcs so i can be on two networks. its very handy to have it setup that way.
 
My computer has six ethernet ports ...

Onboard 10/100
1x PCI-E 10/100/1000
PCI Switch Card - counts one internal connection, and has 4 external 10/100 ports.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top