Networking With Multiple 8234s

[BSampson]

Hey all,

I'm not so sure that this is a LabVIEW specific question so much as a general OS question with networking.  I just happen to be using LabVIEW as the tool to handle my communication and I am running out of options.  I have a PXI chassis with multiple 8234s in them (two port GigE cards) and I want to build a system that allows me to communicate from port 1 to port x within the same chassis.  My NICs are addressed such that they keep the xxx.xxx.1.0, xxx.xxx.2.0, etc. pattern.  IE, NIC one has the 1.0 address while port two has the 2.0 address (this keeps each NIC on a different subnet).

My hardware is setup that each NIC is connected to a router so that all NICs can now see each other.  However, when I try to target NIC 2 (or 3 or 4) from NIC 1, I see no activity on the bus.  I have come to learn (and I may be wrong on this) that when the OS sees that I am trying to establish a connection that can be routed internally, it choses the easier path and routes it internally. 

I am trying to develop a HIL system that communicates to various devices over ethernet and for full system flexibility, I need to be able to switch actual hardware in and out of this system and having these pakets routed internally to the OS is not going to work for our system needs.  Is there another way of going about this? Is there an ethernet commincation protocol that doesn't require address information so that I can simply select a port and broadcast a message without worrying that the OS might not actually route it out?

I have spent a lot of time learning about this technology and the way network topology and communication is handled, but I seem to be able to go no farther. I am really hoping that someone might have something that they can offer.  Thanks in advance. 

[ColeTrain]

Hey BSampson,

Did you ever find anything on this? I have an applicable case for this too.