Re: Extra Machine-to-machine ethernet connection?

[djb chef redhat com (Donnie Barnes)]

>	I am running Red Hat on two dual PII machines.  Currently they
>sit side-by-side, both connected to a 10BaseT LAN network (well, it's
>not a rich department!).  I am thinking about using NFS on the larger
>(better-equipped) of the two machines and mount some directories.  I'm
>also transferring files between the two machines constantly.  Unlucky,
>since the 10BaseT LAN does not seem very well equipped to take such a
>load.  I have a spare 3C905B 10/100 NIC, and am thinking of buying an
>extra 10/100 NIC and making a machine-to-machine direct connection.
>
>	What equipment do I need?  I know there is something called a
>Null Modem Cable that I can use for a direct socket-to-socket 10 Mb/s
>connection between two 10Mbps NICs.  Is it doable for 100Mb/s?  Would
>a simple 10 Mb/s connection suffice if I am running PVM?

You want to make (or get) a CAT5 crossover cable.  You should be able
to find the pin-outs on the 'net somewhere for how to make one yourself,
but it will probably require an RJ-45 crimper, a couple heads, and a 
cable.  You can likely buy them as well.

Then plug the two NIC's into the machines, plug the cable in, and configure
them for private networking.

That said, NFS won't really be noticably faster, I don't think.  It
will for 2.2 kernel based systems running knfsd, but probably not for
2.0 based systems.  The NFS server on 2.0 based Linux can't fill a
10Mbs pipe, let alone a 100Mbs pipe.  Now, *if* your 10Mbs network is
very congested already, then this private network will still help.


--Donnie

--
 Donnie Barnes    http://www.redhat.com/~djb    djb redhat com   "Bah."
   Challenge Diversity.  Ignore People.  Live Life.  Use Linux.  879.
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