Setting up seperate WIFI and LAN

[Rebelkid]

All right kiddos, heres the plan. I have wifi. yay, thats cool, but the router sucks. so what im wanting to do is have my 2 computers receive internet via wifi BUT send local files between them via hardwire -> ethernet to network switch.

computer specs
desktop:
smc usb wifi adapter
integrated NIC

Laptop
internal Atheros wifi card
integrated NIC

and Vista on both just to make life difficult

ideas?

p.s. visual reference included

[CimmerianX]

Easy... Just assign a different subnet to the wired adapters using a static IP.

Then, create the entry in Hosts and lmhosts for the machines using the wired adapter IP.

So that, on each machine:
Wifi adapter ip via DHCP (i.e. 192.168.1.0/24) with public dns
Wired adapter ip via static (i.e. 192.168.2.0/24)

lmhosts file contains:
pcname1 192.168.2.10
pcname2 192.168.2.11

hosts file contains
pcname1.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.10
pcname2.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.11

That way, your machines will use 192.168.2.x when addressing each other, but still hit the public DNS for everything else.

[Rebelkid]

Easy... Just assign a different subnet to the wired adapters using a static IP.

Then, create the entry in Hosts and lmhosts for the machines using the wired adapter IP.

So that, on each machine:
Wifi adapter ip via DHCP (i.e. 192.168.1.0/24) with public dns
Wired adapter ip via static (i.e. 192.168.2.0/24)

lmhosts file contains:
pcname1 192.168.2.10
pcname2 192.168.2.11

hosts file contains
pcname1.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.10
pcname2.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.11

That way, your machines will use 192.168.2.x when addressing each other, but still hit the public DNS for everything else.

coolios, sounds good. will try when i get home

[Rebelkid]

Easy... Just assign a different subnet to the wired adapters using a static IP.

Then, create the entry in Hosts and lmhosts for the machines using the wired adapter IP.

So that, on each machine:
Wifi adapter ip via DHCP (i.e. 192.168.1.0/24) with public dns
Wired adapter ip via static (i.e. 192.168.2.0/24)

lmhosts file contains:
pcname1 192.168.2.10
pcname2 192.168.2.11

hosts file contains
pcname1.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.10
pcname2.yourdomain.com 192.168.2.11

That way, your machines will use 192.168.2.x when addressing each other, but still hit the public DNS for everything else.

alrighty i tried a few things and no luck so can you clarify a few things for me?

what do you mean by yourdomain.com, exactly that or...?
and both lmhost/host files contain both the IPs for 1 and 2? or just the other computer's IP? or does it matter?

i thank you in advanced kind sir.

[CimmerianX]

DNS used FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). Think or it as mycomputer.mydomain.com

At home, you probably have a workgroup setup for the 2 machines. Just use that workgroup name here. It really doesn't matter what you use here.

For example:
mypc1.myworkgroup.com 192.168.2.10
mypc2.myworkgroup.com 192.168.2.11

lmhosts and hosts can safely contain the IPs for both machines.

That way, if you ever need to address the other PC, you can use mypc2.myworkgroup.com. Your pc will do a lookup in the hosts file, see that there's an entry that points ,ypc2.myworkgroup.com to 192.168.2.11 and use that IP for communication.

Think of the hosts file as DNS without a DNS server.