REVISED NETWORK QUESTION 1

[FireElf]

Hi pmkincaid, thanx for taking interest in my question. let me elaborate on my question. i have two computers, one imac(blah) and a Gateway pIII 450. both computers have fast 10/100mb ethernet cards. my Gateway has windows 98 and i am learning Linux. i going to network them so they can share one internet connection. right now i have a dedicated DSL connection(256k). i am singed up for freeDSL (freedsl.com) which starts in April and offers a free dedicated DSL connection(125k). i would like to find out if the is a way to integrated two DSL connections (using two separate phone lines) into one LAN. any help would be greatly appreciated.<br>
<br>
thanx, <br>
FireElf a.k.a. Sean

 

[pmkincaid]

Hmmm, never actually tried that... Here is what I know about similar situations -- you can take two modem and create what is called a MultiLink - where you use both modems to dial up to your ISP, however your ISP has to support this also. Basically both modems have to call the same place, which also has to support multilink.<br>
<br>
Having said that.... I don't know of anyway to &quot;share&quot; two seperate connections -- obviously you can have one computer use one link, while the other computer uses the other link, so they are not affecting each other's bandwidth.<br>
<br>
The problem is that you have two connections, each with their own IP address. Let's say the existing connection is 1.1.1.1 and the connection you are getting from FreeDSL is 9.9.9.9. Bear with me....<br>
<br>
You want to view the web page <A HREF="

http://www.somepage.com"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.somepage.com</A>.

This page has its own IP address 23.23.23.23.<br>
<br>
1. Using the existing connection, your Win98 box sends out the request saying &quot;I am 1.1.1.1, I want the HTML from 23.23.23.23.&quot; The packet leaves your 98 machine and goes to your ISP, who in turn looks up the address 23.23.23.23 and has no idea where that is, so it sends it off to its default route but changes the source address to its own address (your ISPs router's address). This keeps going on until there is a router that knows how to resolve 23.0.0.0, then one that can resolve 23.23.0.0 and so one until the router that is on the network for 23.23.23.23. Now once the web server gets the request to send the web page, it does know what your address is, but does not know how to get there either, so it goes through the same process of getting the web page back to you. The router's changing the source address to its own is actually not really of much concern here, just the idea that it is going through many routers to get from point A to point B and on the way back, it may or more likely may not take the same route back to you.<br>
<br>
Now if it were possible to send the request out two seperate pipes.... Basically you are sending out one request for each of the things on the web page (one for each image, one for each page source, etc.). The problem comes in that the TCPIP protocol stack is probably not going to send your request in one nice neat little package, its going to get split up, basically your requests that go out through the internet are going to be in many smaller packages, to be repackaged into the actual request once it gets to the site you are requesting.<br>
<br>
Having said all that, its not possibly with anything, any program or protocol to send a request out two completely seperate pipes -- the multilink modems, since they are coming from the same machine, going into the same machine, its only multilink between those two machines everything else treats it as one link. If you could get two DSL links to the same place coming from the same machine or router, it may be possible. It may theoretically be possible to send bit 1 out through 1.1.1.1 and bit 2 out through 9.9.9.9, however the machine on the other end that is receiving your request is going to get two seperate requests and it actually will not resolve either because it is getting bits 1,2,5,8 from 1.1.1.1 and 3,4,6,7 from 9.9.9.9 and it is going to see that as two bad requests.<br>
<br>
So after all that, I would say that it is not possible to do it through two seperate service providers.<br>
<br>
Hope this long winded explanation helped a bit,<br>
Paul Kincaid

 

[FireElf]

thanx for answering my question pmkincaid. i wasn't really sure if what i wanted to do was possiable. what made me think of doing this was Linksys' EtherFast 4-port 10/100 Analog Router. this router lets you connect four 56k modems to a LAN network for a bandwidth of 224k. it uses 4 modems and 4 ISP accounts to connect to a LAN. i e-mailed Linksys the same question but i recived no answer. i didn't know if it was possiable to fo the same thing with two DSL connections.<br>
thanx again

 

[Alt255]

Sure you can. Two machines, two modems, two copies of pcANYWHERE. But what benefit do you expect to derive?<br>
Naw, that was a pretty lame answer. Never mind...<br>
Possible or not, your need for mutiple services will determine your means of obtaining them. Do multiple users require simultaneous access to mutiple service providers?<br>
Now THAT'S power! Or does one user require access to two service providers?<br>
If the last case was true and one of your machines wasn't an iMac I'd recommend pcANYWHERE. I use one keyboard, one mouse and five monitors to control three Win98 machines.<br>
Power is good, if you can explain the need.<br>
<br>

 

[Alt255]

Sorry, Sean. We were composing at the same time and you managed to submit first. After I saw your Router post I realized that mine did not apply. Good luck.

 

[FireElf]

thats cool Alt255 what i really want to do is have a LAN (or mabe just on computer) that can take advantage of freeDSL which operates slowwer than my cerent connection. So to make it work i was thinking about networking my computers using two lines, two ISP two, and two modems so i could reach something to the exspectations of my current connection(256k). The major benifit would be paying for two phone lines(about $20 per mounth), but not paying for two ISPs and DSL services(about $16+30 per mounth). the one major drawback so far has been the hardware and software(lol, maybe i too far ahead in my way of thinking, seening how Linksys just relessed a DSL router for home LANs ). whatever the outcome i will continue to look for soulutions to my problem, even if it dosen't include my i-mac, which is kind of the point of setting up my LAN. even though i do plan to expand my home set up with another PC.<br>
<br>
thanx for everyones help so far!!!

 

[robherc]

Hmmm...quite an interesting discussion; as it turns out, though; there <i>are</i> ways that you could integrate multiple xDSL connections (or any other type of connection, for that matter) into one LAN.....how efficient you will be able to work them depends on how much programming you want to do though...e-mail me with a few more specs & I'd be glad to expound on your method of choice in a fresh thread.<br>
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;One of the possible ways would be to set up 2 of your boxes (say the Linux box & the Win98 box) 1 each on the individual modems, then configure them as IPX&gt;IP gateways, then set your Internet Explorer browsers to use one as their default gateway & your Netscape Navigator browsers to use the other by default (using both on each....just having the default different would add stability to this setup)<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Another method utilizing a box, serving as a gateway, connected to each machine would be to also configure both of the gateways as a router; then have another router/firewall combo connecting them to the main network...this way your routers would all co-operate to get your packets sent/recieved through the shortest possible path (with the inherent advantages that brings along).<br>
So please, e-mail me so I'll have a better idea of which method to further explain (robherc@netzero.net)

 

[robherc]

FYI: That visitor who just replied impersonating me wasn't the real thing...I guess I'm just fake until I log in (joking....it <i>was</i> me of course; just wanted to post again so you'll have a clickable e-mail address for me as visitors don't have the option of posting &quot;clickable&quot; links <br>
<br>
<A HREF="mailto:robherc@netzero.net">robherc@netzero.net</A> <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= > </a><br>*nix installation & program collector/reseller. Contact me if you think you've got one that I don't

 

[pmkincaid]

Robherc -- I'd be very interested to know how you could get that to work. Are you trying to share both the bandwidths (ie in a Modem Multilink type scenario) or are you going to use the path with the lowest metric when it sends out a request? Also, how are you going to prevent the TCP requests from fragmenting and one request going out DSL-A and the other going out DSL-B? I am no programmer, but I don't see a way to prevent the packets from fragmenting and going out different paths -- then again, where in the TCP stack is the path determined?? -- I seem to recall the Network layer is where Path Determination occurs -- so maybe you wouldn't be dealing with too much fragmentation...<br>
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Hmmm... Your idea of a third, combined gateway machine -- can Linux take into consideration routing metrics? This is a good idea, but then your Linux router is going to have to participate, or at least receive routing updates from the upstream routers. I guess you could manually add the routes to the routing tables for sites you visit often, but that may take a lot of work on your part, determining traceroutes and the such, plus you are not having the dynamic nature of routing protocols....<br>
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I like your ideas and would like to see what you have in mind. It looks like he simply has two machines each with its own NIC, each connected to a DSL connection. I'm not sure any hubs are involved yet, obviously one is needed.<br>
<br>
Thanks, Paul

 

[Alt255]

GodBless You. Let's let rob perform the magic. Hey, no pressure. I already know your capabilities.