[mythtv-users] myth on separate subnet

[Simon Hobson]

Mark wrote:

>I am putting finishing touches on a new high performance myth 
>backend only server.
>It's a supermicro board with two gigabit nics.  I have been thinking 
>of putting the second nic
>on a separate subnet to isolate the myth traffic and keep the rest 
>of the network unclogged. I have a cisco managed switch, so subnets 
>are not a problem.  My dhcp resolution is through
>an ipcop box.  Is there anyone out there with thoughts on if this is 
>a good idea or not?  I'm not
>that familiar with best practices on network topologies. the server 
>needs to be visible to both subnets because I still have to serve 
>other services to the
>non-myth clients.

Separate networks & subnets should not be an issue, but several 
pieces will need to be in place for it to "just work" :

1) You'll need a router to route traffic between the subnets. You 
could do this on your backend - eneable ip-forwarding and it will 
'just get on with it'.

2) You'll need DCHP working on both, or use static addresses. DHCP 
will work just fine across subnets, but you will need to configure 
the server for both subnets (no idea if ipcop supports this) and have 
a relay agent somewhere on the 'remote' subnet - it's usually in the 
router but it doesn't have to be. NOTE: the relay agent is NOT the 
same as just forwarding broadcast packets, it does modify them before 
passing them on so the server knows the subnet they came from.

3) Ideally you'll need your internal DNS set up properly so you can 
avoid having to remember IP addresses.

But as others have said, for a home network I think this is probably 
overkill. Does the Cisco switch have at least one gigabit port ? If 
so, then you'll have gigabit between backend and switch - and at 
between 2mbit/s and 20mbit/s for a streaming TV program, that's a LOT 
of frontends in use at once before you fill the link ! And the 
traffic won't be seen by other devices thanks to the switch.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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