"Bind" applications to a specific network interface?

[nurfen]

I'm currently using dual ethernet connections (one of them a USB Ethernet adapter) on my Mac Mini, which I've chosen to forward different ports to, so one handles FTP, the other one handles the web server, etc.

Now I'm wondering if it's possible in OS X (10.5.8, unfortunately it's a G4) to "bind" a specific application to one of the network interfaces, so that it only utilizes that one?

 

[belvdr]

For daemons, such as httpd, you can bind them to specific addresses. In Apache, you can use the Listen directive.

Of course, it's not really going to hurt anything to listen on all interfaces if DNS is setup properly so all requests go to a particular interface.

 

[RedTomato]

That's interesting. I suppose if you had 4 usb ports and a USB-ethernet convertor for every one, you could have 5 ethernet connections.

If you had 4 USB-ethernet convertors all connected to a USB hub connected to a single USB port, would that also work? (and if it was 4 x 100mb ethernet, they'd probably run at usual 100BT speeds if fed by something like a SSD anyway) Not quite sure how the interfacing software would deal with that though.

 

[Counterfit]

I'd figure they'd be limited to the bus speed of the host you have it plugged into.