How to force direct ethernet connection to specific port from another pc

[George Li]

So I have two workstations in the office - one is the processing/rendering workstation which just works 24/7 crunching and the other is my main workstation.

I would like to have both of these computers connected directly via ethernet to one another to facilitate data transfer without having to go via the router or network switches etc. Just point to point.

 

Currently I can access each PC from the other no problems, but the access is over the internet connection from both PC's (basically going through the router which is acting as a switch). This is causing bottlenecks as I can't transfer data and access internet quickly at the same time.

I have connected a cable directly from one pc to another now and would like to figure out how to force data transfer through that connection instead of via the router.

 

The connections from each pc are the following

 

Workstation (Has 5 Ethernet ports on the back):

1. Internet ethernet connection to the router
2. Direct ethernet connection to an external NAS
3. Ethernet to processing PC

Processing PC (Has two ports on the back)

1. Ethernet direct to workstation
2. Ethernet to network switch

Network Switch

1. Connection to NAS
2. Connection to Internet (For NAS and Processing PC)

[Kilrah]

You'll want to manually set IPs on the directly connected interfaces that are on the same network but not the same as your main network, and then access the machine with that IP.

[mariushm]

You should be able to use a regular ethernet cable between the two network cards and the network cards should detect how the wires are arranged in the connectors and just work.

If there's issues, you need to make your own crossover cable, by rearranging the wires in the 2nd ethernet jack in a different order:

 

 

Note that a lot of ready made crossover cables are 100 mbps crossover cables and only flip the two 100mbps pairs (orange and green) and leave the others untwisted ... for gigabit and higher all four pairs are used and must be twisted to have proper crossover.

 

Then  you just have to configure a unique IP to each computer, and the suitable subnet mask

The IP classes reserved for internal use are :

 

 

 

So for example, you could have  192.168.100.1 and 192.168.100.2  and subnet mask 255.255.255.0 on both computers.  If your router gives IPs in the 192.168. 0..1 . xxx  , by giving .100.1 and .100.2 you make it easy to not accidentally route the data packets towards your general network.

[George Li]

Thank you both.

 

I've set the IPv4 IP address to 192.168.0.1 and .2 repectively on each pc. However when i try to map the network location or ping it via command prompt, it shows that it can't find the IP location. Both PCs are recognizing that they are connected to a 'unidentified network' on the correct ports though.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

[mariushm]

Set the same subnet mask on both, make sure that ICMP (ping packets) are not filtered/blocked by Windows Firewall or some antivirus you have.

Recommend you use an IP range that's not the same as the one the router gives IPs from.. to reduce confusion and all that.

[George Li]

Below is what I have set both to. They can ping themselves and map their own drives locally so the ip address has definitely been set correctly - but is not registering on the other end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kilrah]

What are the IPs on your main network? It's quite likely to be 192.168.0.x and as mentioned you want something different on the direct interface.

[George Li]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

What are the IPs on your main network? It's quite likely to be 192.168.0.x and as mentioned you want something different on the direct interface.

It's currently 192.168.1.126. 

Do i need to set a new default gateway?

 

[Kilrah]

Nope no need.

How are you accessing the remote drives, with what path?

Also go into network settings and make sure this new connection has been set as "private" on both machines, otherwise Windows will block access to shares for security.

[George Li]

3 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Nope no need.

How are you accessing the remote drives, with what path?

Also go into network settings and make sure this new connection has been set as "private" on both machines, otherwise Windows will block access to shares for security.

So I'm entering the IP address followed by a folder I know is shared. And yes I have set the connection to private on both ends via SecPol.

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

If you can't ping between clients then we need to figure out why first as it rather suggests something is blocking the networking so no point trying to access shares until we know they are talking to each other.

Do you have any security software installed?  Did you check via the UI that it is showing them as Private after you set it?  Reboot maybe?  Double checked on the PC with 5 ports you are using the right one?

[George Li]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

If you can't ping between clients then we need to figure out why first as it rather suggests something is blocking the networking so no point trying to access shares until we know they are talking to each other.

Do you have any security software installed?  Did you check via the UI that it is showing them as Private after you set it?  Reboot maybe?  Double checked on the PC with 5 ports you are using the right one?

Yes I agree - Both pcs showing private network. Private network firewalls are off and no additional security software.
 

I don't know if there is a way to ping specifically on a port of my choosing.

[Alex Atkin UK]

7 minutes ago, George Li said:

I don't know if there is a way to ping specifically on a port of my choosing.

You don't need to, the routing table handles that, it knows which IP goes to which port.  I'd definitely try rebooting both PCs if you haven't already as sometimes Windows networking can go a bit funny when you're changing settings, though it seems unlikely given you see the right results in the console.