Simultaneously maintain a dial up connection (to a data logger on site) and the internet (Ethernet)

Question

I dial up into one of our data loggers, and ftp some files from it. I was wondering if there is a way to maintain the internet connection (connected through Ethernet / LAN)

Answer 1

The "route -p ... " will not work, because at the time of the reboot, the gateway address 12.0.0.1 is not reachable. You only can add the route, while the dial up connection is established. Any other suggestions? Is there a possibility that a static route is inactive, while the dial up connection is down, and gets active as soon as the dial up connection comes up?

Answer 2

I don't have a second connection to test this on, but try anyway. Post a comment if any step fails, or if I'm doing it entirely wrong.

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Configure the network to only route some packets through the dial-up connection:

1. Find out the dial-up connection's default gateway. It's in the Status window of the connection, in ipconfig, and (if you know what to look for) in route print.

   1½. Find out the data logger's IP address using nslookup dataloggers-hostname

2. Disable addition of the default gateway for your dial-up connection.

   • Connection properties → Networking → TCP/IP → Properties → Advanced...
   • Disable Use default gateway on remote network

3. When you connect, add a route to just the data logger.

   route add 12.34.56.78 12.0.0.1
   

   where 12.34.56.78 would be the data logger's address and 12.0.0.1 the gateway's address (which you wrote down in step 1).

4. Test.

5. If it works, and you want it to persist reboots, then add the same route again, with route -p ... this time.