VMware Question

[Sinizter]

Will I be able to do this on my laptop using VMWare Desktop?

Laptop with 3 internet connections over wireless
Vmware with linux distro running to load balance / aggregate the three internet connections
Squid etc
And provide a network interface to windows which I can use as my single internet connection

so windows does all internet stuff through the virtual network interface and the virtual machine does the loadbalancing and proxying of everything.





Any other suggestions to make use of multiple internet connections that doesnt cost a fortune gladly accepted. A router is not what I am looking for as there are 2 separate locations with different networks at each place that I have access to (with permission from owners). Thats why I would like the whole solution to be available on my laptop.

Edit - And would a similar setup be achievable on a mac ?

[DeMote]

I think that the answer is yes. All depends on how powerful your laptop is and how much memory it has.

[Splash]

not as far as I can see, given that VMWare makes use of virtualisation and essentially piggybacks on your NIC. It would need you wireless NIC to be connected to all 3 networks at once, essentially making your idea pointless unless I'm missing your point

[Moby-Dick]

I dont think you can assosciate with more than one WLAN at a time , so you've need multiple wireless lans ?

[DeMote]

The way that I see you would do it is as follows

Disable the host O/S from accessing the wireless NIC

then you have 3 small linux proxy servers one for each lan. Since each proxy is then only conected to the one lan.

You then have a 4th linux server that is your load balancing machine. This is the machine that the host will connect to in order to connect to the internet. The load balancing machine can then decide what proxy server to use for it's out going connection.

[dave87]

All on a laptop?

Thats gunna struggle, especially if you place any load on it.

Just a question, but why would you need access to 3 lans anyhow? surely 1+VPN would work far better?

[Sinizter]

Its a core 2 duo 2 ghz laptop with 2gb ram.

I can connect to three wireless lans at once and I receive IP addresses from each of them. I have already tried this.

The reason for bonding is to combine bandwidth from three separate broadband connections - not connect to the LAN.

VMware with virtualisation of linux distros works fine on the laptop with no problems. So it can handle the load. The main question is can I use it to do the networking detailed above.

With windows, I can connect to all three wireless networks at the same time, but the connections only go across one of them. So I was hoping to have a linux proxy which can load balance / aggregate all three. Currently downloading quite a few things and it would be helpful to be able to this. If not aggregate bandwidth, atleast have different apps go through different networks, so that I can download stuff on one connection while browsing etc on the other.

From what I have read, linux has the capability to handle multiple connections and some sort of loadbalancing with some tweaking of the iptables etc.

I am not sure about how network interfaces one virtual machine on VMware can access - as I have not really used VMWare at any depth before. Only to create some WinXP install images to try out some knoppix boots. But nothing more complicated like what I mentioned.

[aidanjt]

You can't do this kinda thing on your laptop in vmware, you need to put a box in front of your laptop and do routing on it, the problem you have there is you want to use wireless and Linux wireless hardware support is scratchy (but improving, especially with intel adaptors). Also be aware of subnet conflicts.

[Sinizter]

Wireless support for my built in wireless card is fine. And the two USB wireless adapters have been reported to work with NDISWrapper-thingy.

I guess I wont know till I actually experiment with this setup then ....

[sybrows]

you wait to try and logon to a virtual lan with a virt machine with a wifi card ....that has'nt as yet started its service.

ouch

[ikonia]

bonding to share ADSL for "performance" issues rather than availability reasons is not advisable. More so over wirless, as the bottle neck will be your wirless connection and the overhead of the virtuallisation.

This is another example of trying to use enterprise techniques on home hardware that is not appropriate.

[Sinizter]

bonding to share ADSL for "performance" issues rather than availability reasons is not advisable. More so over wirless, as the bottle neck will be your wirless connection and the overhead of the virtuallisation.

This is another example of trying to use enterprise techniques on home hardware that is not appropriate.

I see lots of negative points turning up. No real positive ones. But I am going to try it out - in the process I will have to learn atleast the basics of VMWare stuff as well as some linux networking stuff.

Even if this doesnt work out as I visualise it, the linux knowledge will be useful.

Will post back on here with results either way.

[weebroonieuk]

no joy then ?

[Sinizter]

Havent really had time to play with this yet. Still on the books though.

[weebroonieuk]

ud be better of buying cheap old p2 or p3 systems of ebay with a dedicated wired or wireless connection and running linux in whatever flavour and do as the guys said , maybe even 3 or 4 network cards in pci slots as you will need different physical hardware to connec to to different access points


if it your average card was able to login and connect to multiple access points at once dont you think everyone would be doing so ?

ive already asked in the forums about getting a second line or asking a neighbour if we could buy them broadband and have 2 8Mb links and somehow combine them but seems you need to have a very expensive isp and router that does it and the routers aint cheap !!

[Sinizter]

ud be better of buying cheap old p2 or p3 systems

I am sure I will save on a gym membership lugging that around . Its meant to be used in multiple locations, so this is not an option. Has to be something on a laptop.