Why dual ethernet ports?

[cooljay]

What the two Gb ethernet ports used for... ? Thanks.

 

[Spartacus]

Dual NICs are common on servers and in applications where you may want one NIC connected to the Internet (WAN) and one connected to the LAN.

For the most part, there is no need for dual NICs on a desktop PC.

 

[AMDXP]

Crossover cable and you can use it to connect your gaming console.

Just easier I guess..

 

[brisk]

kind of diggin up an old thread but how can i configure one to be internet and the other to be LAN?
i have one built in the mobo and the other is a pci.
thanks.

 

[Nenu]

Do you want the LAN to access the internet as well or be a separate network?

 

[brisk]

yup.
i want one to access the internet while one to access the server/lan

is that possible?

thanks again.

 

[WhiteZero]

yup.
i want one to access the internet while one to access the server/lan

is that possible?

thanks again.

Affirmative.
Although I dont see why you wouldent put everything on the same network so your server/lan get internet access too..


Unless you plan to do Internet Sharing through your PC, which is a horrid idea. hehe

 

[Nenu]

I can understand the need to isolate a home network if no other users need to get on the web from that network.
There are 2 ways of setting the network up.

1) you can use bridged mode (bridge 2 network adapters together) which will take the IP you use to connect to your router and use it on the second network as well, effectively treating both nics as a single nic. This allows the second network to use DHCP from your router and connect to the internet.
Use this method when you want to auto update etc but you will have to change the IP (or use DHCP) on the machine getting onto the internet.

2) The second way is to specify 2 different subnet masks, one on each nic.
The subnet used on the second LAN should be used by all PCs connected to that network, each with different IPs manually set.
The connection to the router can be left on DHCP or you can specify an IP with the same subnet as the router.
ie connection to router uses 192.168.01 with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0
You might set the second network up with a subnet mask of 255.255.199.0 and use an IP range of 100.168.0.0 to 100.168.0.255.

If you have a DHCP server on the second network, you can set everything to DHCP including the second nic in your main PC for normal operation.
If you do bridge the networks to get your second network on the internet, you will need to disable the DHCP server and reboot (or reset the IPs) all the PCs that want to get on the web. This is so the routers DHCP server is used.

 

[brisk]

thanks for the reply...
but that looks mighty confusing for me...

is there a certain program that would do all that for me?
have one NIC card access the internet and the other NIC access the LAN network?

thanks again.