One server - Two networks (family next door)


Nubi

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Can someone point me in the right direction? I would like to be able to access server shares and Plex from home location or next door. I have a network cable pulled between. My unraid server has two NIC on board and I have another PCI gig NIC. Thanks

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You should be able to just plug in the cable from next door into your other NIC and it will go (server to router). The server will have 2 IP's one from each network and answer requests to each network independently.

 

One caveat: they will need to have different IP spaces (192.168.1.* vs 192.168.2.*) or the server won't know which NIC to send the requested data to.

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Be careful how you run that cable.  A lightning strike anywhere near that cable will probably fry your server!  (I would suggest that you use plastic or metal conduit and bury it.)

 

You can ignore this warning if it the cable is between apartment/flats in a common building.

+1. The danger is real. A strike within a mile or so has the possibility of inducing port frying voltages in unprotected cable via EMF.

I'd install one of these at one end of the cable, and put the green wire to one of your case screws. (This assumes proper grounding on the power to the server.)

http://amzn.com/B000BKUSS8

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Cable is buried in conduit between houses. We used to share one internet connection and that made the server stuff really easy. Now we each have internet due to online streaming and the unraid is not so simple.

 

I changed the IP of my network so they are now different but still no dice. It simply chooses one (seems to be 192.168.1.1) and only that network can see. Any more advice? Does unraid need to be told to operate with two NIC's (bonding)?

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Sorry it took so long to work out. It looks like I have it working now. I ended up with the bonded "broadcast" mode. I now have a very healty green and orange flash on both nics in the server. When I patched my tv network to the "neighbors" network, I can still see the plex server and play a movie. All looks good. I will venture next door tomorrow and complete the plex setup on their tv's and report back. Thanks for all the help. If anyone needs any screenshots or logs let me know.

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Sorry it took so long to work out. It looks like I have it working now. I ended up with the bonded "broadcast" mode. I now have a very healty green and orange flash on both nics in the server. When I patched my tv network to the "neighbors" network, I can still see the plex server and play a movie. All looks good. I will venture next door tomorrow and complete the plex setup on their tv's and report back. Thanks for all the help. If anyone needs any screenshots or logs let me know.

 

Why don't you post up the screen shots of the 'Network Settings' and any other settings pages that you had to make adjustments on.  It could be most useful for the next user who wants to do a similar thing. 

 

Quick question. Can users on one side of the network 'see' across to the other network having access to computers on that side?

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...

Quick question. Can users on one side of the network 'see' across to the other network having access to computers on that side?

 

I'm interested in the answer to that as well.  I suspect the answer is No => my original thought was that this is what they wanted to do, which is why I suggested setting bridge mode ... which I believe WOULD allow that.  But I suspect with the bonded "broadcast" setting the two networks only "see" the server.

 

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...

Quick question. Can users on one side of the network 'see' across to the other network having access to computers on that side?

 

I'm interested in the answer to that as well.  I suspect the answer is No => my original thought was that this is what they wanted to do, which is why I suggested setting bridge mode ... which I believe WOULD allow that.  But I suspect with the bonded "broadcast" setting the two networks only "see" the server.

 

The answer would be "NO"  The server is not configured as a router.

 

Server has (2) Network Interface Cars (NICs)

 

NIC #1  172.16.1.10/24

NIC #2  192.168.1.10/24  (Gateway 192.168.1.1)

 

Any devices on the 172.16.1.0/24 network would NOT be able to communicated with other devices on the 192.168.1.0/24 through 172.16.1.10 host.  The devices on the 172.16.1.0/24 network have their gateway set to 172.16.1.1.  The 172.16.1.1 router does not have a route for the 192.168.1.0/24 network.  Also the server is not running some type of routing protocol.

 

The server can communicated with devices on either network for it is directly connected to it.  For communications out to the internet, it will do so via its configured default gateway

 

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I dont think that any other resources are available to mine or the other network. I can not see anything cross network. I do plan to attempt to move files to the server share from that location though.

 

DOES NOT WORK WITH PLEX! I was mistakenly accessing plex via web remote. 

Working1.PNG.a464d01bd3a14abad64c04166c108699.PNG

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I have discovered that this did not work! Plex was connecting at the other network via internet. What is the correct protocol to keep anyone from erroneously following the previous posts? Should I edit the post with screenshot to delete it?

 

I guess I am back to square one on the problem if anyone has anymore suggestions. Sorry and thanks.

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I have discovered that this did not work! Plex was connecting at the other network via internet. What is the correct protocol to keep anyone from erroneously following the previous posts? Should I edit the post with screenshot to delete it?

 

I guess I am back to square one on the problem if anyone has anymore suggestions. Sorry and thanks.

Edit to say it doesn't work with Plex as written. Sounds like it would work fine with Emby or any of the other local type services though, so I'd leave the posts intact, just add the Plex info.

If I knew more about how Plex works it's possible that the configuration could be tweaked to make it work, but since external connection is arbitrated through the plex servers, maybe not.

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I don't understand why you think you need to have bonding enabled and especially in broadcast mode, since that simply transmits everything on both ports and isn't what you want. Why not simply configure eth0 so that it works with your own network and you have sole access to the Dynamix web GUI, and configure eth1 so that it works with your neighbour's network?

 

eth0 needs IP address, netmask, gateway and DNS server(s) settings compatible with your own Internet router - you could just set it to DHCP.

 

eth1 just needs an IP address and netmask that are compatible with your neighbour's LAN. You don't want it accessing the Internet via his router.

 

Perhaps you're trying to be too clever when it isn't really necessary?

 

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No, having the same subnet mask is not a problem.

 

I would not think bonding would help, as you which to have the unRAID server on two different networks.

 

The router/WAP/Wifi is often at the address of 192.168.x.1, so your server should have a different IP address. your screen shot has the server at 192.168.2.9, which is fine.

 

From house 1, you should be able to ping the unRAID server at 192.168.1.x(9?) and trying to ping 192.168.2.9 should be unreachable.

From house 2, the reverse should be true.

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Just upgraded server to 6.2 and now have the extra GUI config options. I have my network set as 192.168.2.1 w/ 255.255.255.0 sub. The neighbors is 192.168.1.1 with same sub. Is same sub a problem?

Nope. Think of the subnet mask as a sliding window, the farther you open it, the more of the IP address numbers have to get evaluated to process routing. Both networks are only concerned with the last number, the first 3 parts are identical for each device in the network, so they can be masked out (255) when determining where to send a particular packet.

 

It's a little more complex than that, but the basic concept is there.

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Thanks for all the help. I love UnRaid for many reasons but the community is one of the best parts. I can confirm now that I can access the server from both locations. I can view GUI and brows shares. After fiddling with Plex quite a bit, it now is working in "local" mode from both networks.

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Thanks for all the help. I love UnRaid for many reasons but the community is one of the best parts. I can confirm now that I can access the server from both locations. I can view GUI and brows shares. After fiddling with Plex quite a bit, it now is working in "local" mode from both networks.

If you want to give back to the community, do a brief writeup on what was changed in plex, and the network settings in unraid, edit your first post with the short tutorial and change the title of your first post to something like, How to set up an unraid plex server to service to two separate LANs simultaneously, or something like that. The topic may not come up much, but since you earned the knowledge the hard way, it's yours to share if you wish.
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... Both networks are only concerned with the last number, the first 3 parts are identical for each device in the network, so they can be masked out (255) when determining where to send a particular packet.

 

Actually the network is concerned with all of the 1's in the mask -- i.e. the first 3 255's (which represnet 24 binary 1's).  This identies the network component of the address -- referred to as a subnet because there are bits that must match for all hosts in the same subnet.    The 0's in the mask (the last 8 bits in this case) identify the host ID part of the overall IP address.

 

... the network part isn't "masked out" in determining where to send a packet --- they're effectively masked IN to determine where a packet can go => i.e. a packet with a specific host # will only be sent to network addressees with the same network ID (i.e. on the same subnet).

 

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... Both networks are only concerned with the last number, the first 3 parts are identical for each device in the network, so they can be masked out (255) when determining where to send a particular packet.

 

Actually the network is concerned with all of the 1's in the mask -- i.e. the first 3 255's (which represnet 24 binary 1's).  This identies the network component of the address -- referred to as a subnet because there are bits that must match for all hosts in the same subnet.    The 0's in the mask (the last 8 bits in this case) identify the host ID part of the overall IP address.

 

... the network part isn't "masked out" in determining where to send a packet --- they're effectively masked IN to determine where a packet can go => i.e. a packet with a specific host # will only be sent to network addressees with the same network ID (i.e. on the same subnet).

Yeah, I know. I was trying to simplify as much as possible to clarify the end result. Sometimes it's hard to be clear and simple and technically accurate at the same time. I did qualify the explanation with a disclaimer that it wasn't actually nearly that simple.
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