Way OT: Using Multiple Network Connections One Computer

[jmr061]

Well this is way off topic and an advanced topic I believe. I would like to run a laptop that has XP SP3 with two network connections. The first connection is an intranet wireless connection that allows internet access through a server. I would like to keep this connection but utilize a WWAN EVDO connection to take over for internet but leave the intranet connection with the primary network connection.

Is this even possible, if so how?

Jason

[JAYMZ]

Define static routes with varying weights based on the interface default gateway address.

route add -p 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 metric 1
route add -p 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 66.17.145.134 metric 5

That is just an example, but the first one would put traffic preferred to a LAN (wireless or otherwise) with the secondary being the default gateway of your WWAN card. I made up the gateway IPs off the top of my head, but the quad 0 networks would push all traffic out those interfaces in those particular order. Also the -p makes the routes persistent routes that would still be there when you restart your computer. Otherwise, you could have a batch file that you run when you want to have this kind of set up.

[resqguy911]

http://www.nexusisr.com/pdf/Product_She ... s_Hawk.pdf

[JAYMZ]

And of course in my rush last night, I misread exactly what you wanted to do... but that example will work for you, instead of the quad 0 routes you can actually put your local intranet on the one and the Internet on the other... with a lower metric.

I got your PM, and will reply shortly. Just wanted to reply here for the benefit to the community.

rescue911guy...

Care to clarify? Sounds like an interesting appliance, but what is the cost? Even though they are no longer produced I have like 35 Junxion Box mobile routers for WWAN cards that provide wireless to the immediate area. If a mobile hotspot is desired, you may as well get a MiFi mobile hotspot from one of the cellular providers.

[resqguy911]

I have no idea the cost, we didn't pay for them. Basically, a mobile router that has failover capabilities. you can get them with 1 or 2 PCMCIA slots, USB, WIFI, and RJ45 Ethernet. Set up the device in a familiar web-console to have primary connection on the ethernet, and secondary on the PCMCIA. If it loses the wired internet connection, it automatically switches over.

[JAYMZ]

Ah ok. At work for the ambulances we have Junxion Boxes in all of the ambulances. They take a PCMCIA WWAN card and use that for an internet connection to share over a low power WLAN. All just as configurable as a regular at home router.

[HumHead]

The current iterations of XP and OS X are actually pretty good at managing multi-adapter configurations without the need for any manual routing configuration, with a few caveats:
1) The LAN connection(s) should have static IP addresses, with the gateway field left empty.
2) The LAN interface(s) can only talk to their own subnet. If your intranet has multiple subnets, those additional routes will, in fact, need manual entries, as per Jaymz's post.
3) The adapter with the internet connection should have its gateway defined.

Given those conditions, the system will automatically route traffic to the interface on the matching subnet, and send all other traffic to the one defined gateway.

I am actually running both XP and OS X machines each having eleven interfaces(ten LAN and one LAN + Internet). They are all routing perfectly without any manual routing table entries. The biggest pain was actually making sure that all of the name server and search domains were set up correctly.