IP Networking over USB

[Triska Metria]

Greetings. I'm just starting to delve into cluster environments, and now have a usage scenario in which it would make more sense to ask this question. Thus far, I have my Master Control Node and a Slave Node built to spec with what I can afford. I would like to avoid having to go out and get more networking equipment and jump straight to something a bit exotic. Either I missed this item, or it wasn't covered in the handbook. A Google search also yielded nothing.

I would like to link USB<->USB and tunnel TCP & UDP between the channels. I have just enough ports on the Master to accommodate two (2) slaves with this setup.

Does anyone know if this is possible for FreeBSD?

Danke.

 

[sidetone]

Did you see this? http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-usb-tethering.html . It doesn't cover much, but it's a start.

Also, an Ethernet switch is pretty cheap, if you choose to use that instead of usb.

 

[Deleted member 9563]

Also, an Ethernet switch is pretty cheap

In fact probably free if you just use the switch part of one of your old routers.

 

[SirDice]

There is fwip(4) and plip(4) but I couldn't find something similar for USB.

 

[Juha Nurmela]

Bluetooth an option? btpand(8).

Juha

 

[SirDice]

If you have a proper managed switch you can use vlan(4) interfaces to separate the traffic. Physically you'd have one interface and one cable but logically you'll have two or more interfaces and networks.

 

[diizzy]

socat can probably do what you're asking for.