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I have 3 machines and want to configure network connections so that all 3 machines can reach each other without any switch or router in between. Machine A has 2 nics and the other 2 machines(machine B and machine C) connect via direct network cable to each of the nics of machine A. Machine B and Machine C are not connected via network cable. I Can obviously connect fine between machine A and machine B and between machine A and machine C. I want to also be able to connect and exchange traffic between machine B and machine C.

  • I do not care about internet access, I only want the 3 machines to be able to connect to each other (ping, remote access, drive/folder mapping...)
  • A switch/router is out of the question as the connects are 100 gigabit ports and I do not want to add a pricey 100Gb switch to this setup
  • I cannot connect machine B and machine C via network cable because machine B connects to machine A via active optical fiber and I do not want to add a pricey 2nd AOC cable.
  • I run Windows 10 for Workstations and Windows Server on the machines
  • Bridging connections on machine A is out of the question because it under-performs and would make a 100Gb connection useless.
  • I read that I can have machine A <-> machine B and machine A <-> machine C run on different networks and route traffic on machine A.

My question is: How can I configure the routes on machine A which runs windows. Pleases assume that I have plenty of resources (memory and CPU) and that I can accept network performance degradation due to the fact that traffic would be routed with CPU involvement rather than an optimized switch ASIC involvement. What I am interested is the software routing configuration so that machine B can communicate with machine C.

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    I run Windows 10 for Workstations and Windows Server on the machines I'd recommend you to use Server OS only on the intermediate MachineA. This allows you to set it as a router and do not use registry edition tricks. Also it allows you to activate WINS server and "to see" all machines in network neighborhood. To simplify the setting process activate DHCP server on machineA, set separate subnets for its interfaces, and set another machines to get net properties automatically (if there are some services on them which needs in static address lease them).
    – Akina
    Apr 2, 2019 at 6:22
  • @Akina, thanks for the pointer. I may consider the OS change, for the time being the registry "hack" works as well.
    – Matt
    Apr 2, 2019 at 11:32

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Per the suggestion here (for Windows 7, but since the registry entry has existed since Windows XP, could be it still works): https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/lync/en-US/8f5ef2ca-c6e8-42e6-a70d-6d09bfdafa48/configuring-windows-7-as-a-router-in-lan , I suggest:

  • You make the registry change on computer A,
  • Configure B so that its default gateway is the IP address of A on the network B shares with A,
  • Configure C so that its default gateway is the IP address of A on the network C shares with A

Note that in this configuration, if you change your mind about Internet access, you would want to configure A to have Internet access to ensure that B and C also are able to reach the Internet.

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  • I followed the instructions but can't access the other network. I already rebooted the machine. One network is on 192.168.2.0 the other 192.68.3.0. Am I supposed to be able to ping from a machine within the 192.168.2.0 network a machine on the 192.168.3.0 network? Also after rebooting I see an "Incoming Connections" icon among my other nics. Not sure what that is about...
    – Matt
    Apr 2, 2019 at 9:26
  • I got it to work, thanks a lot, this was exactly what I was looking for.
    – Matt
    Apr 2, 2019 at 11:31

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