Load balancing question
 

I have two NICs in my computer, and I want to receive internet data on both of them. How can I do that ? Will data transfer be better ?

Theoretically yes, but you need two isp's, one on each card. As a rule, providers limit the number of ip's you can get. After having the first one, you can't have a second.

Ok, here's the setup. I receive the internet from LAN (through a switch, from a server). Both the NIC's can recieve an IP through DHCP, and it doesn't matter in what NIC I plug the network cable I still receive net. Now... can I plug two network cables in both my NICs and gaim some sort of speed ?

Most likely not. You say that you are on a LAN? I assume that you are in an office? Your company's internet pipe is probably not that big and everyone is sharing a relatively small pipe. However there is also a possibility that your company may limit the bandwidth available to each NIC so everyone will receive a more uniform connection. If this is the case and you have two unique paths to the shaping switch then it may be possible to setup a connection like you are speaking of. Can you give more details of your setup?

I'm on a LAN, in a student hostel, we have a high bandwidth connection (fiber optics). We have no limitation for the available bandwidth (but I just can't get enough :D ) for each computer. Is this enogh information ? Could you tell me how it is done ? Do I need to be limited in some way, in order to do a load balancing ? Could you point out some directions to do this load balancing ?

If your network indeed has no limit on how much bandwidth you can have per MAC, then there would be no advantage of doing this.

If they put a cap on bandwidth per MAC, then you could have two NICs each getting the maximum allowed bandwidth, but I know of no way to combine that into one connection. You would have to manually bind individual programs to each NIC.

Now I have a maximum of 10 MBs and with two cables I thought I could get a maximum of 20 MBs :D

If you go to this site, http://peeyush.tk and then click on "Load Sharing / balancing or bonding between two or more then Network card" under "Linux", it describes a method where you can "bond" your NICs to appear as one.

I believe this is used in clustering environments where load balancing/redundancy is used. There are some links at the end of the article that may also be of help.

Or try this site: http://www.pcquest.com/content/searc...037&way=search

It covers Linux at the bottom.