Possible? One PC in a lab versus many

I'm curious if anyone has tried this or if it is even possible.

I have a Cisco lab and plan on working on some vlan concepts this week. Instead of setting up multiple computers to test with, would it be possible just to use one computer with multiple NICs? Each NIC would be on a different subnet, and all I would need them to do is ping each other. This just seems more practical.

Is this even possible or am I going to have to setup multiple computers?

Thanks

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Comments

dtlokee

The problem will be that the PC will see it's own NIC as the shortest path to the subnet and won't send the traffic to the default gateway so no routing. A possible workaround would be some virtual machines (VMWare ot virtual PC) and bridge them to different physical interfaces so each one has it's own routing table.

Darthn3ss

dtlokee wrote:

The problem will be that the PC will see it's own NIC as the shortest path to the subnet and won't send the traffic to the default gateway so no routing. A possible workaround would be some virtual machines (VMWare ot virtual PC) and bridge them to different physical interfaces so each one has it's own routing table.

yup thats what i do. i run a few windows 98 VMs.

phantasm

I just use an old Win Server 2k3 box and and old laptop. laptop fits ontop of the case for the 2k3 box, all is well. lol.

hypnotoad

You'd have to set up static routes to each network using the XP "route" command.

blackninja

I got two old pcs off ebay (£50 inc p+p) then set 1 of them up as tftp server - (both now running SuSe linux) - use a KVM so you can use one keyboard and monitor. I also have my laptop connected as well.

Learnt a lot from doing this.