Network setup - LDAP w/ procurve and FIOS

[ricko]

Greetings!

So I have two computers that I control with one keyboard and mouse a la Syngergy w/ KVM over LAN.

Computer 1: Asus Rampage Formula (2 gigabit NICS) w/ Q9550 @ 3.6, 8GB DDR2, ATI 4850 X2 and an Areca ARC-1220 w/ 8x 1TB in RAID 5.


Computer 2: EVGA X58 Classified (2 gigabit NICS) w/ i920 @ 4.4, 6GB @ 2, GTX 280s in SLI, Patriot Torqx SSD, 2x Velociraptors in RAID 0


Now on to the question. I currently have Verizon FIOS (50/20) w/ their Actiontec mi424wr router. The ISP connection to the router is via coaxial. The problem is I have to move large amounts of data between the two computers so I recently purchased an HP Procurve 1800-8G. Each computer has 2 gigabit NICs. I would like to use LDAP to trunk the 2 NICs per computer into the managed switch. Moreover, I use 3 or 4 different applications that require port forwarding so static local IPs make life easier.

I have tried setting this up in almost every conceivable configuration with different combinations of patch cable and regular cat 6 but I am at a total loss trying to find information on the internet on how to do this. I have spent countless hours adjusting settings on both the router and the switch. I was thinking the conventional wisdom would be to run cat 6 from a LAN port on the Actiontec router to the HP switch and then connect the 4 NICs from the 2 computers to the HP switch. I've setup LDAP on the switch but as soon as I enable it I can no longer connect to the internet. At this point I would settle just to have a gigabit connection between the two computers that allowed me to forward ports and maintain static local IP addresses.

I am lost and there seems to be a big gap on the internet in available information - on the one hand there is information for folks seeking their Cisco certification and doing enterprise deployments and on the other is about.com information for the total neophyte. Any information/help provided would be greatly appreciated and any additional information needed for diagnoses I will gladly provide.

Thanks!

[ricko]

I also have a Linksys WRT54G with tomato/dd-rt if an additional router is needed

[mpolter]

Umm LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is for authentication. Perhaps you are thinking of link aggregation and LACP? Do you want to trunk the two ethernet ports on your PC so you have 2 gigabit links acting as one effectively doubling your bandwidth?

If this is indeed what you are trying to do, the drivers for the ethernet card must support adapter teaming. You can get the driver from Marvell I think for the Rampage board and check in the driver settings in device manager control panel in windows on the evga. You also need to set up link aggregation on the procurve. Create two LAG groups with 2 ethernet ports in each on the switch. It is very important that the two ports in the lag group connect to the same PC.

Hopefully this pointed you in the right direction. Let me know if you need any more help.

--MikeP

[ockie]

Do you really move that much bandwidth from an 8TB server to justify the need for trunking? I have always found trunking to be more of a hassle than it's worth, especially with home setups. A really good nic can easily replace the performance of two on board cheap nics.


You will need to have proper driver support as mentioned above and you should configure both your switch and nic to be adaptive. An idea would be to get something like a proper intel dual port server nic.