On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 11:43:22PM +0000, Cayenne-uk wrote: > I am involved in a debate regarding the number of nics needed on a Linux
> server.
>
> The Scenario: Two or more PCs need to be connected on a LAN. A PC will be
> set up as a server, providing email, firewall, files etc. So all internet
> traffic from the other PCs should of course go through the server, connected
> up through a hub. A fairly standard set up. Obviously the server would have
> to address the IPs of the internal LAN, as well as deal with the external
> ISP connection.
>
> The question is - how is all this normally wired up? More specifically, must
> the server have two network ports (ie nics)? (One for the LAN via the hub,
> and one to connect to the ADSL), or can the ADSL connection AND the LAN be
> handled through one network port?
In principal you can use a single NIC and it will work, but it's a
very bad idea, mainly for security reasons. The standard and strongly
recommended approach is to use two.
