Dual NIC Configuration

[Luis Rodriguez]

Hello all,
Its me again. Anyways, I just recently got a static public IP address so i can teach myself web hosting/design/IIS. I was wondering if there was a way to install 2 NIC's in my server (one for my private IP workstation and one for my IIS/web hosting). I know the optimal option is to get another server dedicated to the static public ip, but i was just wondering if this was even an option. Or perhaps i can virtualize a IIS server using the nic#2 with the pulic gateway info. What is my best course of action for this? google has failed me once again . Thank you all in advance.

 

[Luis Rodriguez]

P.S.

right now I am running one machine with SBS 2011 essentials. I dont have any AD or anything a standard server would have (im a one man show). This is my test server that i do all my training on.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

Yes, you can have two NICs in one box. Most mid to high end motherboards and servers come with two NICs in them.

A couple of thoughts here:
Windows server directly connected to public IP is not a great idea.

You can hook your router up to the public IP, do port forwarding using port 80 to the static internal IP of your server, and wala, no need for two NICs, no need for the security risk of a fully public server, and you can host as much as you want.

The only time I have used dual NICs have been when I am working on a router and I do not want to take my pc offline to be only hooked into that routers subnet, or when I am doing clustering.

 

[Luis Rodriguez]

Thanks for the guidance!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Agreed....putting a Windows box directly on a public IP address...get used to rebuilding it on a monthly basis due to it being hacked into all the time.

Learn port forwarding....forward only the minimum ports necessary to expose the services you wish to allow.

I'd want a dedicated IIS box that does nothing else on your network too.....I wouldn't add IIS to your current server if you have lots of stuff on there you consider valuable to your biz...like Quickbooks company files, customer info, etc. Windows IIS is still a decent hole to expose unless you learn how to really lock it down....and constantly monitor it and keep it updated.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

How about run the server in a VM? its just for testing after all.

 

[Luis Rodriguez]

Thanks for all the input. It appears that port forwarding is the answer to my issues. And yeah, I'll still pop in another Server OS in VMware to kill 2 birds with one stone.