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Mac Write · Jan 9, 2005, 02:29 AM

I current have ADSL, but with a looming cap of 20GB and paying over $100 month, it's a joke. I have a spare ethernet card and just had the idea, during testing to use the cable modem on the PCI ethernet. I know I can set it up so both connections are live, but I want to route X app to X connection (bittorrent to ADSL for example, and everything else to cable). Is this possible, and how do I achieve this?

I will be running both connections for 2 months and need to test the cable fully, while not letting my ADSL go to waste (Yes I have a router, but my Beige is out of order, I need it's HD in my MDD).

Anyone done this? I want all the bittorrent traffic on ADSL, everything else on cable during the test. Once I am satisfied cable is good, bye-bye ADSL (and phone service).

Thanks all for the help.

P.S. I live in New Westminster B.C. (Vancouver basicly)

Mac Write · 02:58 AM

IDEA

If I bind bittorrent to the IP of ADSL and also bind my web server to the ADSL IP, will that work, and everything else will use cable since it will be the first port in the network list?

SMacTech · Jan 9, 2005, 10:21 AM

Just disconnect the DSL and use the cable connection. Why introduce some 3rd party hack to the OS to accomplish this and then not sure if any problems you encounter is from it, or your cable connection.

Anywhere I have used cable, it has kicked DSL's @ss for download speed. I have seen some limited upload speeds in cable systems, but it isn't as important for me as download.

I would test for latency in DNS and ping times to the DNS servers. There is nothing worse than a high-bandwidth connection with slow DNS response, well except a slow dial-up connection.

I can't understand your logic for testing in this manner, but... I digress.

Mac Write · Jan 9, 2005, 03:47 PM

DSL is 500x more reliable. I would rather have a 1mb DSL connection that is rock solid then a 20mb cable connection. Also cable prohibits servers, and I need to run my servers during my testing stage. I think binding bittorrent and my web servers to the DSL IP will work best, but I need to confirm it, flipping cables etc won't work. when they see a server on my port then I am screwed and suspended. DSL is 500x better where I live for reliability, no cap (well until now 20GB is a joke at $100/month), dedicated connection and so forth.

SMacTech · Jan 9, 2005, 03:57 PM

Originally posted by Mac Write:
DSL is 500x more reliable. I

You didn't mention anything about servers which as I stated, cable's upload limits can suck, which doesn't bode well for a server, eh!!

I couldn't imagine using a connection 500 times worse than Verizon DSL. I cannot say that is true here with Verizon DSL vs. Adelphia cable. Based on my dad's downtime with his DSL in the past year, I would have been out for the entire year with cable.

Mac Write · Jan 9, 2005, 05:50 PM

Upload on eXtreme-I is 1mbps same as my DSL which is 2.5mb/1mb 2 static IP's no port blocking, servers allowed, and used to be un-metered until now (still no official warnings yet, but the new meter page, and inside info says caps will be enforced very soon). $90/month Canadian with Telus.

I want to continue to run the servers on the DSL while I test cable since servers of any kind are prohibited on cable and will cuase me to be suspended (they are super anal, but have a 50GB/month cap compared to the 20GB/month cap I will have once I get the warnings from Telus).

The first month of cable ($39.95 for first 6 months) is free and I want to use that month to test it out, but any servers will cuase me to get suspended as they have a AUP scanner that scans ports etc. So during the test I want to bind my web server, SSH, AFP, and bittorrent ( I use Azureu and bound it to the internal IP of my Router will that work) to prevent any AUP problems with Shaw cable.

Shaw also does traffic shaping limiting bittorrent to 5KB/5KB trust me I would rather stick with ADSL if the cap was reasonable, but at $90 for 20GB is a joke while cable at $75 with dynamic and 50GB and 5mb/1mb is a better deal (SOHO package that allows servers, but has an outrageous installation fee so I am testing on Residental to get free install).

Big Mac · Jan 10, 2005, 08:13 AM

Originally posted by Mac Write:
DSL is 500x more reliable. I would rather have a 1mb DSL connection that is rock solid then a 20mb cable connection. Also cable prohibits servers, and I need to run my servers during my testing stage. I think binding bittorrent and my web servers to the DSL IP will work best, but I need to confirm it, flipping cables etc won't work. when they see a server on my port then I am screwed and suspended. DSL is 500x better where I live for reliability, no cap (well until now 20GB is a joke at $100/month), dedicated connection and so forth.

This just goes to show all of us that YMMV when it comes to broadband. DSL may be improving, but when I had it (SBC) a couple of years back it was horrid. Constant outages and a little less than a megabit down for $50. Cable has been heavenly in comparison. Experience with a particular connection type is dependent upon the quality of that particular locality's service and the wiring to the specific location.

mcsjgs · Jan 10, 2005, 01:57 PM

I second Big Mac's views. We had DSL and it sucked after a couple of months (SBC). Got cable, and we are not looking back. Get a router that can clone your MAC (not Mac) address if you are worried about the cable company.

olePigeon · Jan 10, 2005, 08:35 PM

I had the exact opposite experience with Cable and DSL. My Cable connection would drop at least twice a day and I never got even close to the supposed 10Mbit speed. I got maybe 100K/sec if I was lucky. The upload is only 256Kbit too. At $60/month, screw that.

So I got DSL Pro from SBC for only $40/month. It's 3Mbit/768Kbit line. The speed testers from DSLReports rates mine at 2.3Mbit down, 684Kbit up. Not too shabby. Not only do I get 200 to 300K/sec regularly, but my upload is at least twice as fast as the cable. My pings on Counter-Strike dropped from 50ms to about 15ms on the same servers.

It also hasn't gone down a single time since I've owned it.

Millennium · Jan 11, 2005, 11:29 AM

Setting up the two cards to have two different connections is quite easy; almost plug-and-play in its simplicity. Once you have your second Ethernet port attached (probably through a PCI card), you should be able to use the Network control panel to assign DNS addresses and such separately. I would recommend setting the cable modem's Ethernet interface as your primary interface, so that every app tries to connect through there first.

The real problem will be routing specific applications through specific connections. You might be able to do this by using the firewall, but I doubt there is any kind of GUI available for this, so you'll have to venture into the world of Scary Terminal Stuff. This is advanced, and although I have an idea for what might work, I've no idea how to do it.

The simplest thing I can think of would be set the cable modem as your primary interface, and then set the firewall to disallow outgoing or incoming connections on BitTorrent's port range through whichever Ethernet port corresponds to the cable modem. This should cause BitTorrent to fall back to the secondary interface, which would be the DSL connection. This isn't a perfect solution -any app trying to go through BitTorrent's typical port range would be routed through DSL- but it should get the job done as a temporary thing.

Can any FirewalkX users expand on this? I don't use FwX, but I know it allows for application-based rules instead of port-based rules. Might FwX be able to force applications to use different interfaces?