Gigabit autonegotiated network

boomslang · n00b Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 48

I have two computers - a desktop and a fileserver. The fileserver is running an NFS server, and has an nVidia NIC running forcedeth drivers. The desktop will be connecting to the NFS share, and has a Marvell NIC running sky2 drivers. "ethtool" reports each as capable of gigabit networking. I am running gentoo-sources 2.6.21-r4 on each machine.

The gigabit networking standard includes support for automatically negotiating the "crossover" if two machines are connected directly together with standard CAT5 without a router or switch. There is no need for a crossover cable. Because my desktop has dual NICs, I would like to connect one NIC to the rest of my LAN and the other to the fileserver. My LAN does not have gigabit hardware, so I'd be losing speed if I put my fileserver on it. I would like to network the desktop and the fileserver together by connecting them with a straight through CAT5 cable.

My Gentoo networking experience is limited to dhcp'ing every machine on the network. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can give each machine an address on this two-machine-LAN, or otherwise go about setting up the network so that I can transfer my files to the fileserver?

think4urs11 · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:36 am Post subject:

The most easy way is to use an IP-Range different to the one you use for the rest of the network.
So if the IP you get via DHCP is e.g. 192.168.1.100/255.255.255.0 you can use 192.168.2.x/255.255.255.0 for this connection.
As long as you don't need to have your filserver available to any of the other computers in your network you're done.

If this server shall be available to the whole network you need to activate ip forwarding on your desktop too and you have to set the default gateway on the server to the 192.168.2.x-address of your desktop. (see e.g. the home router guide)

The actual 'how to configure the ip manually' is described in /etc/conf.d/net.example
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AdShea · n00b Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 62

You could also go for apipa addresses (they're the ones in the 169.254.0.0/16 subnet) and use something like avahi to give name resolution. This is how apple does things, and how I have my comp at work set up.

boomslang · n00b Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 48

I used Think's suggestion. Thank you. Works fine.