bandwidth aggregation - load balancing 2 ethernet cards over 1 ip

[staticfly]

I need some help. I've been running into roadblocks in every direction i've taken.

I'm in a dorm. I have 2 ethernet ports (10mbit). They are full duplex. And the switch(its a switch.. probably managed) has a 100mbit uplink.

I will be using linux as a sort of gateway. I want to use both ports and "bind" them together in a way so i can get 20mbit up and down.

Everything i've looked at requires some sort of really expensive hardware. It seems to me that this might still be possible in linux.

I basicly want linux to bind the cards together to one ip and so i can have the bandwidth available aggregated over both ports. But I don't understand switches very well, and i'm not sure how it would switch this kind of data. This seems to be where my problem will be.

I hope this is clear (besides my spelling). Anyone have any idea's? I know I should rtfm but i can't seem to find much of anything around the lines of what i want to do.

Anyone?

 

[gaidin123]

Does a single one of your dorm connections get you 10Mbps transfers? If you're not maxxing out a single interface then you probably won't benefit much from bonding the 2 NICs together. Basically I'm betting that most people here will agree with me and say that you should check your school's AUP (acceptable use policy) and see if they care whether you take up 2 wall ports or not.

Also, for aggregating 2 or more NICs together the switch must both support that feature and be configured to enable it on your ports. I'm guessing any self-respecting residential network center at a university would specifically disable things like that.

Gaidin

Edit: If your response to the first question is, "We are limited to X amount of MB transfer per day/week/month" or "My p2p application download speeds are really slow" then you'll have to look elsewhere for help...