Connecting Both Wired and Wirelessly

[owensdj]

I have two desktop machines a few feet apart that connect to the Internet using USB wireless adapters. One also connects to the other to access a database for Quickbooks Point-of-Sale. I'd like for the two desktop machines to connect to each other using wired ethernet for reliability and speed reasons. What's the best way to do that?

I was thinking of just running a Cat6 crossover cable between them and configuring the IP addresses for the wired adapter statically. Would that work OK, or would being "multi-homed" (connected to two networks) cause problems? Thanks.

 

[seepy83]

It should work out alright. Actually, you can probably use a regular patch cable (not Xover) due to auto-mdi/mdix if it's supported by your NICs.

You should put the wired connections on a different network than the wireless. So, if your wireless network is 192.168.1.x, then make the wired connection 10.0.0.x (or any other private network you want. 192.168.2.x, 192.168.200.x, whatever....it doesn't matter). Don't enter a default gateway on the wired network.

Everything should work fine as long as your application doesn't care that the PC is multi-homed. The routing table in windows would know to send traffic for the 10.0.0.x network out the wired ethernet port instead of the wireless.

 

[imagoon]

Is there a Windows Domain involved?

 

[owensdj]

seepy, is there a way for me to find out if the ethernet ports support auto-mdi/mdix? They're HP machines built a few years with Win7 installed. Also, will I need to manually set the speed and duplex settings?

imagoon, no domain. It's just a few desktops and laptops in a workgroup that connect to the Internet with one of the desktops accessing a database server on the other desktop.

 

[JackMDS]

Depending on configuration of every thing there is also a second option.

Switch Off the Wireless on one computer connect the two with a Wire and Bridge the NIC to the Wireless on the active computer. This way everything would be on the same Network.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/create-a-network-bridge

 

[imagoon]

seepy, is there a way for me to find out if the ethernet ports support auto-mdi/mdix? They're HP machines built a few years with Win7 installed. Also, will I need to manually set the speed and duplex settings?

imagoon, no domain. It's just a few desktops and laptops in a workgroup that connect to the Internet with one of the desktops accessing a database server on the other desktop.

I would go with Seepy's suggestion then. With a Domain it would be quite doable just more work to prevent system issues.

 

[imagoon]

Depending on configuration of every thing there is also a second option.

Switch Off the Wireless on one computer connect the two with a Wire and Bridge the NIC to the Wireless on the active computer. This way everything would be on the same Network.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/create-a-network-bridge

While this can work, all it takes is someone plugging that desktop in to cause a network look and bring down the entire network. If anything... I would use and AP and share that wire.