I am trying to figure out a way to be able to share my dsl and cable connection on the same network basically distributing each outgoing request on a different ethernet card. I am not really caring about load balancing (BGP,etc..) as much as just being able to use both connections simultaneously. Just a way to download a file and it is requested on one connection and download another and it sends the request to the alternate. I know this is not the most efficient but it would allow me to utilize both connections. The ultimate scenario would be to allow me to set a threshold of bandwidth utilization on each port and when it reaches that threshold switch to the other nic. I know their are hardware solutions like the Nexland ProTurbo800 but I have seen instances where people say it can be done in linux but not have found any direct info on how to do it. Thanks for anyones info as I know this may be abit difficult to figure out.

For a while I was able to get multiple IP addys using Road Runner and had to setup something like what you are talking about I believe.

I used iptables and was able to route specific IP addys through the different ext IPs. I had one router with one int NIC and had 3 ext NICs. I can help you with that part if you think that would be of any use to you. Although you seem to want something a little more advanced than what I had, and from what you are asking I would think that load balancing might be easier to setup than the alternating trick.

Goodluck

Thanks for everyones help, I got tired of fooling with it so I bought the Nexland ProTurbo800 this weekend as it seems to do the trick. It is a bit expensive but easy to use. I did a cost analysis of my time vs the cost of the router and it just didn't make sense to spend soo many hours on something that I could buy for not too much money and be done with the problem. I did learn alot more about linux's networking capabilities though.