Mac – Dedicate 1 ethernet port on Mac Pro to internal backup volume

backupethernetmac pro

Is this possible? I'm using a Mac Pro as a home (Lion) server, connected via ethernet to a gigabit switch. One internal drive is reserved for network backups from local users via Time Machine. All running Lion. Can I use the 2nd (currently redundant) ethernet port exclusively for backups to the internal drive, and so save the other port for other network traffic / file serving?

Best Answer

Sure, assign a static IP to the 2nd port, create a DNS record pointing to that IP, then configure the remote Macs to use the DNS name.

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Mac Pro: Splitting network traffic based on destination

The solution was to perform the following:

sudo /sbin/route -n delete default A.B.C.D
sudo /sbin/route -n add -net A A.B.C.D
sudo /sbin/route -n add default E.F.G.H

(details as to the above can be found in the question.)

Ethernet bridging Mac Mini

Mostly, you can just overload the one ethernet hardware port with two or more IP settings. As long as your switch can handle things, this works the simplest.

Or you could drop an thunderbolt to ethernet adapter on the back of the Mac Mini and have two hardware interfaces to let the Mac Mini sit between the two networks and route as needed. You would run OpenVPN on the adapter en0 which connects to fiber.

All of this is controllable over the normal system preferences for networking but I've been able to accomplish all of what you describe without needing the unix command line. Just drag the default route interface to the top of the service order listing and you should be good to go.

Best Answer

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Mac Pro: Splitting network traffic based on destination

Ethernet bridging Mac Mini

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