dual network cards, gateway configuration

[Kremlar]

We have a server here that we want to setup using dual ethernet cards. LAN1 will attach to the local network, and LAN2 would attach to a router tied to a dedicated internet connection.

The reasoning is that we want the PC to communicate to the rest of the LAN (using LAN1), but we want to allow remote desktop connections into the PC through a dedicated internet connection.

We initially have it configured like this, all fixed addresses:

LAN1 (local)
IP: 192.168.1.101
Gateway: 192.168.1.1

LAN2 (internet)
IP: 192.168.9.101
Gateway: 192.168.9.1 (the router)

This works great 95% of the time. The problem is that, on occasion, LAN2 will "forget" it's gateway address. Basically, remote desktop connections will not work through the LAN2 connection. If I open a command prompt and run an IPCONFIG, it will show the LAN2 card's gateway address as blank. If I run a repair on LAN2, the gateway address will then fill back in and the remote desktop connection will start working.

However, I'm not certain if this is setup as it should be to begin with. Should I be using 2 gateway addresses, or should both LAN1 and LAN2 have 192.168.9.1 as the gateway address?

Thanks in advance....

 

[spidey07]

You can't have two default gateways. It isn't supported or a good idea. What you're describing is the similar problem when you have two default gateways - how is the host supposed to know which one to use?

Take the gateway address off of LAN1 and only have the card that actually needs a gateway (internet or other non local network) with one. If 192.168.1.1 is truly a router to other networks that you need to use then you'll have to setup static routes on the host to use this router to reach networks it has reachability to.

 

[Kremlar]

That's what I thought, thanks for the confirmation.