possible to bakup via ethernet while maintaining airport to internet?

[mondovox]

We have a combined Apple network with an SMC barricade wireless on the second floor and ethernet between 3 Macs on the first floor. All computers access the wireless for broadband. Currently the g4 tower runs Retrospect and accesses a g4 powerbook and new g5 via wireless for backups.

 

But golly, this is really slow. At this rate, it will take 3 days to do the first back up given the number of external drives that are hanging off the client machines.

 

Is there a way to set up network settings so that Retrospect uses the ethernet while not sacrificing the wireless for broadband? AND without switching settings back and forth every day?

 

We did this when all computers were running Jaguar but now the two with Retrospect clients are running Panther and it just doesn't seem to work.

 

And of course, we didn't document how we got it to work on Jaguar.

 

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

 

thanks.

[natew]

Hi

 

In general Retrospect will use the network adapter that is at the top of the adapter list on your mac. I would rearrannge the order of the network adapters and see how it goes.

 

nate

[mondovox]

Nate,

 

Well, that didn't work. The result was that the internet connection went down because the computer tried to access the broadband via ethernet even though airport was second on the list. And the ethernet is closed, just between the 3 macs (one main and 2 client restrospects) and one printer on the first floor.

 

I KNOW we had this working on this guy's old G4 w/jaguar. I'm just kicking myself because I didn't write down the sequence of steps we went through in getting Retrospect to access it via ethernet and keep his internet connection via airport simultaneously. I think it involved moving things around in the network list order several times, manually typing in IP addresses several times, and then getting the computer to connect to the printers all over again and eventually, they all sang together and Retrospect was lightning fast.

 

It was a mess but we did it once. If we can't get it to work again, this poor fellow is going to have to manually switch his network location before he goes home and then back again when he gets in in the morning.

 

For tonight, I've created a duplicate set of network location settings and reordered the list so the ethernet is first. At least we'll get him backed up once.

 

If you have any other thoughts, I'd love to try them.

 

Many thanks!

Julia

[mondovox]

Okay, this is weird but it seems to work now. Here's what we did:

 

1. create a duplicate of the basic network location settings that had airport first on the list and ethernet second.

 

2. name the dulicate location, 'backup config' and reorder the settings so ethernet is first and airport second

 

3. in Retrospect on the backup machine, 'forgot' his previous client connection and re-establish by typing in his ethernet ip address. restart retrospect.

 

4. run a backup. ran at a beautiful speed.

 

5. then switch back to the 'internet config' so that the designer can access his email and the internet.

 

6. then the designer promptly forgot to switch his network location before he left on Friday BUT Retrospect used his ethernet anyway!! And the ethernet was second on the list.

 

Yay!!