Hey, I've been using desktop linux since 2006 but am only starting to get more advanced.

I bought a used blade server and am running Fedora 14 as an Amahi install, and it's working great. Amahi acts as my DHCP and my DNS server. (all known devices have static IP's btw) The goal is to have a second machine running FreeNAS, with tons of storage (I'm currently at 4TB) and mount nfs volumes on boot through editing the fstab file. This is working just fine when both the server and the freeNAS box are connected through my router; all of the mount points appear as normal.

Now I'd like to move the box into the same room as my blade, and connect the NAS box and the blade directly through the blade's 2nd NIC. I want outgoing traffic and internal-NAS traffic to not conflict with each other...as it is when I VNC into the blade server while copying files between blade and NAS I get serious lag.

I've not been able to get the 2nd NIC working on the blade box. At first it wasn't active, but I got it active in "System > Administration > Network Device Control" and copying the settings from eth0 to eth1 (applying the correct IP btw) and activating the device. I statically set the IP of the blade's 2nd NIC and the FreeNAS box, but even from the blade I can't see the NAS. NIC 1 works, NIC 2 doesn't, and I don't know enough to figure out how to fix it.

Any output you want I can provide, I've perused tons of threads and am still COMPLETELY lost. Thanks!

I got it working. Few things I did to make it work:

Make sure you use a crossover cable for a direct connection, not a patch cable. Just to make sure it was clear I knew that.

I went into System -> Administration -> Network Device Control. Then, I hit configure, selected the eth1 interface, and hit edit.

First, uncheck "Controlled by Network Manager" and check "Activate device when computer starts."

I statically set the IP address and made the subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Finally, I needed to set a static route, so that the computer knew when you tried to access that IP to use the one specific NIC. Click the "Route" tab, then I hit "Add" and made the Address the static IP of the FreeNAS box, and made the subnet mask "255.255.255.254". That was the problem, I had been using the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Don't do that.

Now it all works, and there's another happy consequence...I can only access the web interface of the FreeNAS box from the HDA itself, which is nice, it's a bit more secure not being open to the main home network. Not only would you have to get into my network...you have to have VNC control over the HDA.