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Connecting to 2nd NIC from another computer

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7 replies

by barth.travis

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Hello,

I have a Vista64 machine with two NICs. The one I use for outbound traffic is the only one with a default gateway.

I can ping the IP of the second one from this computer, but not from any other computer.

I share a large amount of data from this machine on a dedicated RAID volume and I want people to connect via that second NIC so that my main NIC is not clogged with traffic.

How can I make this work?

Thanks!

7 replies

by mblessing

Are you using an internal DNS server? because you could use DNS to point to the NICs IP you want people to connect too. Are they mapping a drive to this PC? I'm not sure what you mean in your second sentence? Do you mean the Vista64 can ping it's own second NIC but other PCs cannot? Is the firewall turned on? If so, I think you can add the different NICs to different Network types (Private or Public) to control the sharing of resources. Sorry about all the questions, I hope some of this helps.

by barth.travis

Questions are welcome! I appreciate the response!

This is the situation in more detail, with answers to your questions:

VistaPC has two NICs on the same subnet. NIC1 has a default gateway, NIC2 does not.

The PC is able to ping NIC2 by IP, however no other machines can. ICMP is enabled in the Windows firewall and my assumption is that it would cover both NICs. (Can a NIC respond to ping when it has no default gateway defined, even if the ping is coming from the same subnet?)

We use both an internal DNS server and a WINS server. If there is a way to sort this out with either of those, that would be great, however it would probably have to be WINS because our internal domain up with an external top-level domain extension. (I know, I know...)

The machine is simply hosting files via HTTP (HFS.exe) so they will be entering the machine's name in their web browser. I already have this running on a different, single-NIC machine, but I want to move it to this one.

Thanks again for the reply!

by jdclyde

always start with the firewall disabled, establish your connections to confirm it is working, and then turn the firewall back on.

Right now, you don't know if it is the firewall or not, so eliminate that as a possibility.

I assume they are both on the same subnet but different IP addresses?

Next step, unplug the one you CAN ping from the network, and try to ping to and from the other.

Break it down, and isolate each piece in your testing.

by jdclyde

with them both on the same subnet, the pc won't know how to reply.

If you have a gigabit card, it is doubtful traffic on the port would be the bottleneck compared to the wired network and your switched LAN.

by mblessing

(jdclyde) Like you said though, unless your talking about some major bandwidth demands, you won't saturate a gig connection unless you are using a 4-port sataII raid0 array. The best way to use both NICs would be to use them in a team. Are they both the same manuf? If so you can install their management app that will let you utilize both nics with one IP if their hardware and drivers support it. You could probably google NIC teaming for vista64 and find what hardware might be supported. You would also need to config your network gear to support the port trunking too.

I Guess I missed the reply, while typing. Good luck!

by barth.travis

In my defense, I thought I'd already tried that. (20+ year admin)

As it turns out, Vista's suckery just keeps going and going.

Want to enable ICMP in the XP firewall? Easy, it's in the firewall settings.... go figure!

In Vista it's somewhere else which you will never find without Google. More MS trying to protect us from ourselves.

XP and OSX all the way.

Thanks for leading me to the fix!

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