Splitting Network Load Across Multiple Interfaces

[anonmill]

I use a Macbook Pro at my work and have both wired and multiple wireless network connection options. Obviously for most of my work I would like to connect via ethernet due to speed/stability. However, recently certain IM protocols were blocked on the wired network, but not on a couple of the wireless networks. So my questions are:

Is it possible to utilize both a wired and wireless network connections at the same time? Specifically if they are on different networks? Is it possible to have my IM application (Adium) use the wireless connection, but have everything else (RDP, SSH, etc.) use the wired connection?

I goal is NOT to trying to "Bond" the two connections together to make one bigger pipe, from what I have gathered that is basically/practically impossible. I am interested in directing certain programs to use a particular network interface first if there are multiple network connections present.

Thanks for any suggestions a head of time. I tried searching for solutions on my own (and will continue to) but must not be thinking of the correct phrases to use in my search.

 

[belvdr]

Are your wireless and wired ports on the same subnet? If not, you could add routes to your IM provider's network so it routes out the wireless interface.

Otherwise, I think the only option is to go wireless entirely.

 

[anonmill]

They are not on the same subnet. If they were, the wireless connections would have the same restrictions as the wired one.

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't fully understand when you say:

"If not, you could add routes to your IM provider's network so it routes out the wireless interface."

But at the very least you have given me something else to investigate, so thank you. The IM provider in particular is MSN. We have a corporate MSN IM, but they have block standard MSN on the wired network. I don't have any control to make network changes, so any changing of how requests are routed would have to take place on my box before the request is sent (if that is obvious/redundant in reference to your suggestion, which I suspect it is, I appologize and plead ignorance )

 

[belvdr]

They are not on the same subnet. If they were, the wireless connections would have the same restrictions as the wired one.

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't fully understand when you say:

"If not, you could add routes to your IM provider's network so it routes out the wireless interface."

But at the very least you have given me something else to investigate, so thank you. The IM provider in particular is MSN. We have a corporate MSN IM, but they have block standard MSN on the wired network. I don't have any control to make network changes, so any changing of how requests are routed would have to take place on my box before the request is sent (if that is obvious/redundant in reference to your suggestion, which I suspect it is, I appologize and plead ignorance )

From a quick Google, I found that MSN uses 207.46.96.0/19 for their subnetting. This is dated information, but you can add to it as you learn what they use.

So, in Terminal, check your default gateways:

netstat -rn

Now, whichever one is used on your wireless, add the route:

sudo route -nv add -net 207.46.96.0/19 gw <default route from wireless>

You can add this to /etc/rc.local to have it executed every time you boot up. I do not know how to have this route automatically added when you connect to that particular wireless network.

 

[anonmill]

Thank you very much! I will give that a try.