using two NIC with two IPs to connect

skob · 12-03-2008, 05:11 AM

Hello

I wonder if there is the possibility to use two NIC (eth0 and eth1) to connect to the same website. Eg. have two browser instances, one takes eth0 and the other eth1.

The reason is, that I'm developing a multi user web application that i need to test online, and i don't have a second machine at home. But my ISP provides me with two dynamic IPs and my machine has two NICs, so i could connect both of them trough a switch to my modem, which is only a bridge, no router, to get two different IPs. Not quite sure about that, didn't buy the switch so far.

Is there a way to point with two connections to the same web application? Is special software, configuration hacks or something like that needed?

Many thanx in advance
skob

OS:
Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) 64bit

NICs:
Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI
Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E

Diagramm:

Code:

      _________
      |       |
/---> | Modem | <--------> Internet
|     |_______|
| 			
|     __________         |-----------|
|     |        | <---> eth0  Linux   |
\---> | Switch |         |   Box     |
      |________| <---> eth1  2x FF   |
                         |-----------|

miedward · 12-03-2008, 08:20 AM

I think you are probably over engineering this. HTTP is fairly dumb and deals with connections individually anyway. If what you want is to test higher volumes of connections just open a couple different browsers or write a script to send requests more quickly (wget or somesuch).

If you really want to have the connections come from separate IP addresses, I would suggest using VMware (or some other virtualization product) and bind a virtual machine to the other IP address. Basically what this does is give you a second computer without needing a separate stack of hardware. I don't think you probably even need the network card, just assign the other IP address to the VM.

skob · 12-03-2008, 10:51 AM

Thanx for your fast answer. I will try it with VM.

The thing i want to test is a login, which is bound to an IP address. The application should not allow login of more than one user per IP address.

miedward · 12-04-2008, 06:36 AM

VMware should work fine for that if you used "bridged networking" and then set up the network on the virtual machine to use your other IP.

VMware is really handy anyway.