1 PC on 2 Networks problem

[FastEddieC]

I'm pretty much in the minor leagues when it come to TCP/IP manipulation, so I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice on a recent problem.

I wonder if I just have a setting wrong or if there is some tool I can use to conrol the TCP/IP traffic on this particular PC. It's kinda long, so here it goes...

We setup a PC in our office (Win XP SP2) that has 2 NICs in it, and both are recieving IP settings dynamically. NIC #1 is connected to our network - (10.88.10.x/24) and the gateway/DHCP/DNS setting are all the same IP.
NIC #2 is connected to a niegboring associate office, (10.245.1.x/24)and has a gateway of 10.245.1.1 and the DHCP/DNS/WINS IPs are all the same.

The first network provides internet\email\file sharing - all of our our user's PCs IE's setting are forced to go through a proxy server - (no problems with proxy server).

The second network provide a very much needed connection to a mainframe in another city, which is accessed through a terminal emulation program.

The term emulation connection works great - no problems there.
The email & file sharing (mapped drives to our server) works great too.
The problem is the internet. It is hit and miss, (mostly miss), and definitly won't pull up a page if the term emulation program is running and connected. Although it will resolve a page quickly when NIC #2 is disconnected or if I use the modem to dial out & connect to a local ISP.

Is the PC's IE timing out after looking for a path to the internet through both LAN connections?
How can I force certain TCP/IP traffic to go to thier proper paths?


Thank you in advance,


Eddie

 

[paskuda]

I think you should have just one default gateway. Default GW is exactly what the name says - gateway through which packets are routed when there's no known entry in routing table. Keep the gw on interface you get mr Internet from, and remove from the second one.

Hope that helps,
Mike

 

[chieftan999]

Also, have a look at your routing table.

Do a routeprint command from the prompt and check the path being taken.

Also, tracert may help here.



Reamin positive. The affect on those around you will amaze.

 

[FastEddieC]

I ran a route print command and you guys were right, the default gateway is the #2 network's gateway.

I put in the IP settngs staticly on the #2 network without the gateway, and as I suspected, the terminal emulation program couldn't connect.

Any ideas on how I can force the terminal emulation program to use one gateway, and the internet to use a different one? (I checked the program - it's connection settings aren't that customizable)

Eddie

 

[bcastner]

Do a persistent Route ADD with manual metrics.

 

[FastEddieC]

Ok, I just read up a little bit on the route add command, but I found very little that explained how the metric statement should be used.

If I do a route add command for both IPs and associate the correct gateway (I hope I'm saying this right) - what would the metric part of the statement look like?

I hope its not too indepth, I don't want to put you out into going into a legnthy explanation of metrics. Do you know of a good white paper or tutorial where I can read up on it?


Eddie

 

[bcastner]

Ignore the metric argument in route add.
The default is 1, which is likely fine.

 

[FastEddieC]

bcastner,
That worked! Thank you very much!

I'll post what I did for anybody that may stumble across this thread in the future.

Command used:
route -p add xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx mask 255.255.255.255 10.88.10.1

Wheras:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the destination (proxy svr) that was being overlooked when attempting to conect to the internet

255.255.255.255 is the subnet mask (I tried 255.255.255.0 first but it rejected it - ?)

10.88.10.1 is the gateway I want it to use instead of the default gateway.

I hope this helps someone as much as it did me.


Eddie

 

[rcrecelius]

Thanks for sharing that Eddie...I have another topic right now regarding a similar issue and this might come in handy for me too.