Question About Network Adapters

Is it possible to have a network connection conected via cable, and a different one vía wi-fi adapter, and use them for different programs?

For example: I'm downloading Dota 2 in Steam (15 GB)and I want to do it with my wireless adapter, but I can't browse the web smoothly like that, so I'd like to use my wired connection for that.

If qBitorrent lets me specify this, why not Firefox and Steam?

6 Responses

You cannot bind client software to specific network interfaces like eth0 or wlan0 , but you can tell the kernel that you only want to use one network interface for some IP addresses - which you can do with routing.

If you can specify it in qBitorrent, then I think it is possible if the software allows it.

How can I tell that to the kernel? Sounds like it could work...

Daniel Ryde has has done this via a LD Preload shim.

First, download his code.

2.Then, rename 'bind.c.txt' to 'bind.c' and then do the next steps to compile his code in the directory you have downloaded his code.

Open the terminal and type in these commands one after the other :

gcc -nostartfiles -fpic -shared bind.c -o bind.so -ldl -D_GNU_SOURCE
strip bind.so
cp -i bind.so /usr/lib

With his code compiled now, you can run :

root@Ermiya:~# BIND_ADDR="192.0.2.100" LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/bind.so firefox - where 'BIND ADDR' is the ip address of your desired network interface and 'firefox' is your desired process.

That's it !
Test it out and let me know

Note : all of the bind LD_PRELOAD shims only work with TCP connections, not with UDP as far as I know.

Ermiya

Did you test it out ?

I wanted to, but I couldn't figure the IP from where the big file was being downloaded, so I'm investigating Hak5 videos on Wireshark right now :)

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