Help! FreeBSD Webserver with two NICs

[Robin Vley]

Maan Jee wrote:

Hi!

> At present, I have a 100/10 Mbps internet connection
> (fiber-optics) but with this connection I cannot get Fixed IP for the
> webserver.

Sweet. Why-O-Why won't they give you a static IP on that line? :)
Here (Sweden) we have full 100/100mbit to some appartment buildings WITH 
fixed IP. But basicly you can only pull/push 1mbit, since there is a 
300GB traffic limit imposed. :)

> So, I came to an idea that if I use two NICs, one NIC bounded to 100/10
> Mbps to serve the pages and one which would be bound with 24/1 Mbps
> connection with Fixed-IP to litsen the requests....
> 
> my Question is that is it possible and if so, how?

Not possible the easy way: you can't reply to a request from a different 
IP than the one the request was sent to due to TCP socket limitations. 
The clients expects an answer from IP x on the socket it opened, but 
instead receives "unknown" data on a new socket coming from IP Y.

To get this working you would need a third fixed IP/machine somewhere 
and do tunneling with two channels combined. That way your inbound 
traffic would go via the fixed IP and the outbound via the big pipe.

Giving me an idea right away: if you have any such point available close 
by with a fixed IP (some machine somewhere in a rack with good 
bandwidth): tunnel it to your home. But if you would have that, you 
wouldn't have the webserver at home anyway, would you? :)

-- 
Robin Vley
F/X Services Managed Hosting
http://www.fx-services.com