I've got 2 network interfaces in my machine, but BeOS is only recognizing one of them. Unfortunately, it is recognizing the one that reaches my internal, and not my external network, so I can't access internet through BeOS (i can't switch wired, cause there's some sort of MAC address checking set up to access outside internet)

one card is a 3com etherlink 3c905 and the other is a 3com 'fast etherlink'... both work under linux's 'boomerang/vortext' driver, so i'm not sure why its not recognizing both cards. also, i know that in past installations of BeOS (when i only had the one net.card), it was recognized fine.

any ideas?

tahnks

it can be noted that there ARE 2 "ethernet" devices in the devices preferences box, but I can only get one of them to show up in the network preferences :-\

I did some research regarding this matter and found absolutely nothing anywhere that even mentions using multiple network adapters under BeOS.

It was my initial assumption that BeOS networking does not natively or normally support this. BeOS was intended as a home computing desktop OS with emphasis on multimedia, so it's doubtful that developers would have considered supporting multiple network adapters.

Please note that I do not actually *know* that this is true, but I seriously doubt BeOS's network support will let you use multiple network adapters simultaneously. I just don't see any way this could work.

However, thanks to the modular design of BeOS, network support (the net server) isn't built into the kernel; it's just a module. This means that it's possible to code around this, although I don't much see the point.

Honestly, I think your best bet may be to use a single network adapter. I'm certainly no expert on network topology, but surely you can access both networks using a single NIC.

I know this probably wasn't the sort of answer you were looking for, but a simple solution may not be available.

As far as the Devices Preferences, all sorts of things you can't actually use can show up there. You don't even have to have a driver loaded for a device to be listed. For example, my Midiman/M-Audio Delta 1010 shows up in Devices, but thanks to Midiman dropping the ball on the BeOS they PROMISED in a press release years ago and which were always "just around the corner", there's no driver and no way for me to use it. It still shows up, though. You can also add anything you like to the list of Devices.

I use 2 cards. It may be that you have to config in dos first.

jefro,

When you use two cards, do they both show up in Network Preferences? I don't have an extra NIC to really play around with this and test it myself.

They both show up in the Network Prefs and then they can be configed on mine. They both show up in devices too. They are DEC types but that only means the general not card specific. You may have to search Frizbe.net and see if both cards have been used by someone else. If they are both PCI they almost have to be able to be installed (just have to cifer on it a bit.) As with our QNX machines sometimes just moving the position of the card in the motherboard slot will correct the problem. (PNP off) There is no reason that I have found that any number of cards couldn't be supported. They are on the PCI buss and not part of the DMA or CPU buss. Now we are getting into IRQ and mem resources. It is like saying you couldn't have 1000 comm ports. If you could get your hands on the beos bible you might work around the setup.
SOO. is supported?,pnp off, move cards, change config in devices panel, edit network file.

Beos does support muli nics. If it didnt, the option to do IP forwarding would not be of much use. However beos 4.5 did not support two nics of the same kind. I know they fixed this with 5 pro but I have never tried 5 pe.
At any rate one thing you have to check on are the network card settings. you may be stepping on yourself ( using resources that are already in use )
If each card works by itself, then I would start by changing the resouces each card is using.