Dual Interfaces in one Windows System?

[MrPurple]

Guys,

Here is the situation, I got a Windows 2000 Server system with dual NICs.
Each NIC is on a diferent Lan segement, and both segements are going eventually to the same Firewall before hitting the internet.

Now for the question:

Which NIC card will the OS use as the primary? Does it have some way to chose or is it random with each packet going out to the internet?

[DVNT1]

Depends on the Default route. If you have two default routes (one for each NIC) with the same metric then I'm not sure.

[MrPurple]

Both NICs connect to the same switch wich is VLANed throught a router. The router is also connected to the Firewall trough a second interface on it.
Both have the same default route from my understanding.

[DVNT1]

At least with XP, if you do a route print and look at the default gateway settings, XP will use the lower setting if the metrics are the same.

You could change the metric for one route which should make it do whichever route you prefer (lower metric has precedence).

example: route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 metric 10 would make Windows use the other default route which is normally set to 1 by default.

Of course if you use DHCP, you may have to add a script to remove the non-prefered route and then add it manually with the higher metric. Note: a metric of < 1 is not valid.

[MrPurple]

Figures, it wouldn't be simple. One interface is set to static and the other is on DHCP.
Hmm, gona play around with route settings.