Ubuntu – Two ethernet ports on motherboard. How to get double the bandwidth

10.04ethernetnetworking

Direct Question: My evga classified motherboard has two ethernet ports. I want to use them simultaneously to improve the speed of a remote connection. (Yay for programming remotely). How do I do this? At present /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo eth0 eth1

iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.202
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.2

ifrace eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.201
netmask 255.255.255.0

What should I change? Is there a package I need to install to bond the two channels.

Background: I do a lot of remote computing both from home to office and office to home. But (to take my ISP out of the equation), let's frame the question as if I'm really just interested in maximizing the file transfer rate between two computers on the same (local) network. Both boxes have dual ethernet motherboards. Using a simple Linksys WRT54GS as a 5 port switch (ignore wireless and isp) — how do I maximize the transfer rates between the computers?

Please Note: I'm not interested in load balancing — Correct me if I'm wrong, but I want to bond the two channels together so that the box appears as if it has one connection that's twice as fast.

Best Answer

Its important to note that in order to utilize NIC teaming functionality the switch you're connected through must support teaming aka LACP. You can find a switch like that through a search on NewEgg.com etc.

Once you have that here is a simple guide from the wiki: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBonding

Good luck!

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