Combine two ethernets?

[Thomas Folz-Donahue]

> From: Xan <DXpublica at telefonica.net>
> I have two network interfaces: eth0 and eth1.
> I just want to know if it's possible to combine two interfaces for
> downloading (and uploading) at the same time in the two interfaces. That
> is, can ubuntu use the two interfaces at the same time?
Any laptop user with wireless capabilities has two network interfaces.
 What's more, the wired interface is almost always faster than the
wireless interface.  It would be good to gracefully switch to the
wired interface when a laptop is plugged in.

My wireless router gives my wired interface and my wireless interface
IP addresses from the same subnet.  When the wired interface is
disconnected, Ubuntu does not detect this and start using the wireless
interface for all new connections.  This is because (i think, maybe
i'm talking out of my ass here) the arp table has 192.168.1.1 (that's
the router) listed as connected to the wired interface.  In order to
use my wireless connection, I need to disable the wired interface
(e.g. sudo ifconfig eth0 down).

This is pathetic.  Ubuntu needs better laptop support.

> For example I think:
> a) ubuntu automatically uses the less used interface. If it's possible,
> we could have two balanced interfaces (equal traffic bandwitth)
Good plan.  If this could be done automatically, we could advertize
50% more bandwidth than windows (assuming G wireless and 100Mbps
wired, typical curent laptop).

> b) we could specify which program uses what interfaces. For example, use
> bittorrent in eth0 and web browsers in eth1....
It would be nice if every long-term connection used wireless, because
the wired connection will drop randomly as people move around their
houses.

At the very least, I think that when a wired connection has its cable
removed, it should automatically shut down and let the failover
happen.

~thomas
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