Sharing ethernet 2 Mac Pro's

[bmorris]

We work in a shared office space and we have 2 Mac Pro's.
We have 2 internet sources, ours and the post production house too.
The Mac Pro's are in 2 separate rooms. One room has an ethernet jack to our internet, the other room has a jack to the post production house's internet.
So one mac pro is connected to our network, and the other is connected to theirs.
We have another ethernet cable to connects to both mac pros, we wanted to share the 2 networks with both mac pro's via ethernet. so mac 1 with our network shares it with mac 2, and also connects to post prod network via the ethernet.
is this possible?
we have internet sharing turned on but its not working.

 

[goMac]

This isn't really trivial. It sounds like you're trying to bridge two networks, which can cause serious trouble if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[ndraves]

Just to confirm, are you just trying to connect to each of the other MP shared drives or are you also wanting to access other network resources from 1 MP in the other MP 'camp'?

There are many issues here with the routing of traffic between what are essentially 2 completely different networks.

If you are looking at sharing other network resources then your best bet would be to look at connecting the 2 networks with proper networking gear. This would sort all the routing issues and allow all the resources that you wanted to be shared. I.e. connect the 2 routers together and look at setting up static routes between them.

 

[bmorris]

Okay, we are a video production company (Company A), a separate company, but in the same office space as us, is a post production company (Company B). Company B has their network and internet. Sometimes we need to put files on their server (basically a Mac Pro G5 w/ many hard drives). So we need to be able to put files on that server from both MP 1 and MP 2.

We don't NEED our own network, but we have a 1TB Time Capsule to store invoices, documents, etc. We need to be able to connect to that as well. The MP 1 connected to Company B's network seems to be able to access the TC with no problem with out being connected to our (Company A's) network.

SO, instead of sharing 2 seperate networks, how can I share the Company B's network from MP 1 to MP 2?

MP 1 is connected to wall via ethernet. It has access to internet, company B's server, and our (Company A's) TC server. It's second ethernet jack is connected to MP 2 via ethernet. How can I get MP 2 to get access to Company B's server? I have sharing turned on but doesn't seem to work.

Ideally, we would also like to directly connect MP 1 & 2, so in the Shared section of Finder's sidebar, we can see the other MP and connect to the hard drives to transfer files, as well.

And on a side note, a little off the main topic, we would love to be able to connect to the TC when on location shooting. I have tried MobileMe, and it works for my home TC, but not for the office TC, it doesn't show up at home. The home TC connects at the office, but the office TC doesn't show up at home.

I think b/c the office TC is connected to Company B's main network and created it's own network. Is it possible to broadcast a guest network for clients, and be able to connect to the server remotely on location?

 

[Phillie14586]

I am not network expert but shouldn't a ethernet switch work? The two macs plug into the switch which is connected to the ethernet coming out of the wall.

 

[ZilogZ80]

And on a side note, a little off the main topic, we would love to be able to connect to the TC when on location shooting. I have tried MobileMe, and it works for my home TC, but not for the office TC, it doesn't show up at home. The home TC connects at the office, but the office TC doesn't show up at home.

I really don't want to get involved with your network bridging issue but for remotely connecting to any network resource a VPN is ideal. You can have a hardware one or a software one running on the server. In fact I believe SL server has this functionality. Once configured it makes external connections to your network trivial (and secure!)

 

[goMac]

Okay, we are a video production company (Company A), a separate company, but in the same office space as us, is a post production company (Company B). Company B has their network and internet. Sometimes we need to put files on their server (basically a Mac Pro G5 w/ many hard drives). So we need to be able to put files on that server from both MP 1 and MP 2.

We don't NEED our own network, but we have a 1TB Time Capsule to store invoices, documents, etc. We need to be able to connect to that as well. The MP 1 connected to Company B's network seems to be able to access the TC with no problem with out being connected to our (Company A's) network.

SO, instead of sharing 2 seperate networks, how can I share the Company B's network from MP 1 to MP 2?

MP 1 is connected to wall via ethernet. It has access to internet, company B's server, and our (Company A's) TC server. It's second ethernet jack is connected to MP 2 via ethernet. How can I get MP 2 to get access to Company B's server? I have sharing turned on but doesn't seem to work.

Yeah, again, this is bridging networks, and if you don't do it right (assuming this can be done right at all), you can take both networks down. I don't think you'd want to get an unhappy call from your production company or your ISP.

MobileMe is the best way to remotely connect to a Time Capsule.

You could put up your own internal network (and probably should) and at least get Mac Pro 1 talking to Mac Pro 2.

 

[bmorris]

How can I get Mac Pro 2 to connect to Company B's network via ethernet to Mac Pro 1?

 

[goMac]

How can I get Mac Pro 2 to connect to Company B's network via ethernet to Mac Pro 1?

Buy an ethernet switch for $30, plug the switch in Company B's network, Mac Pro 1, and Mac Pro 2.

I'm not sure why you're trying to link the ethernet ports on the machines together. It's a bad idea.

If you wanted, you could buy two ethernet switches, put them on Company A's network and Company B's network, plug each Mac Pro into switch A and switch B, and then you'd have each Mac Pro on each network.

But, if you do this, do not plug the switches into each other. You will take down both networks if the switches are plugged into each other, resulting in much unhappiness.

 

[bmorris]

Isn't that what the time capsule would do?
plug the tc into the main network and have the other 2 mp's plug into the tc?

 

[goMac]

Isn't that what the time capsule would do?
plug the tc into the main network and have the other 2 mp's plug into the tc?

Yes, you can do that.

If there is an IP range conflict though, this won't work, and there isn't anything that can be done about that.

Be very careful doing this. If you plug Company A or Company B into the LAN ports on your Time Capsule, you will take down their network.

 

[ndraves]

What you are trying to do isn't as trivial as just running the correct cables.

One idea i have though is:

What IP address is given to the MP on the ethernet adapter that connects between them?

If this is 169.x.x.x then there is no assignment going on there. An option here might be to manually assign an IP on this adapter of something like 10.0.0.1 with a subnet of 255.255.255.0. On the other MP then set the other end of this cable. I.e. the adapter that connects to the other MP to have the address of 10.0.0.2/255.255.255.0.

Then on each of the machines set the router address to be the IP address of the other MP on the adapters that connect between them. Then setup on sharing to connect the 2 network adapters under internet sharing (you probable have done this already).

This should allow the 2 machines to talk to each other and hopefully talk to the network further up line.

Apart from all this I would still recommend using networking gear to achieve this rather than the computers.

 

[milbournosphere]

How can I get Mac Pro 2 to connect to Company B's network via ethernet to Mac Pro 1?

Have you looked into plugging each pro into both networks? You have two ethernet ports on each machine. As long as the networks don't have overlapping IP tables (e.g two servers sharing the same address; i would bet it'd really confuse your pro), you should be okay. It would be worth looking into.

 

[goMac]

Have you looked into plugging each pro into both networks? You have two ethernet ports on each machine. As long as the networks don't have overlapping IP tables (e.g two servers sharing the same address; i would bet it'd really confuse your pro), you should be okay. It would be worth looking into.

It sounds like he's got one ethernet jack to each network, which is why I suggested a dumb switch for each network.

 

[milbournosphere]

^ Ahh...sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[ActionableMango]

As others have said, do not connect the two networks. This is undesirable and there is no need for it.

I assume your company is Company A. If so, here is the simplest method I can think of:

Wall jack for Company A -> Time Capsule -> Port A on MP1 and Port A on MP2

Wall jack for Company B -> Ethernet Switch -> Port B on MP1 and Port B on MP2

On the Mac Pros, configure port A according to the IT department from company A and configure port B according to the IT department from company B. This may just be DHCP and it's probably all automatic. In this manner you have access to both networks individually from both computers and you can both access Time Capsule on network A.

There is no router between the two networks, and they remain separate.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the only problem I see at the moment is you'll have Internet access by way of both networks. If you only want Internet via Company A, you'll need to have Company B block Internet access to your computers via their router or proxy server configuration.

 

[goMac]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the only problem I see at the moment is you'll have Internet access by way of both networks. If you only want Internet via Company A, you'll need to have Company B block Internet access to your computers via their router or proxy server configuration.

You can handle this by prioritizing the connections in the Network system preferences, but if there is any IPs shared, only the higher priority connection will handle those IPs.

 

[bmorris]

I got it figured out.

But as far as my Time Capsule and MobileMe, it's not working.

I have tried setting the TC in Bridge mode and DHCP.
But it does not show up at home.