Stopping a network connection from accessing the internet.

[zyfa]

Hello,

I have a problem, firstly that I live in Australia where internet connections are limited to a set amount of monthly usage. There are two internet connections in my home, one for myself and one for everyone else.

I have an Intel Pro 1000 PT dual gigabit port NIC which I bought so that I can have one port plugged into the modem for my internet and the other plugged into the other network so that other computers can access files on my computer.

The problem is that the data allowance on the internet connection for everyone else is very little so I don't want my computer to access the internet through the second connection. The primary reason for the file sharing is to stream movies over the network so I don't want to be enabling/disabling all the time.

I have already tried setting a static IP and blocking it through the router on the secondary network but then I have all sorts of issues with applications in Windows (I'm using Windows 7 64) trying to access the net through the other connection, not getting through the router and timing out instead of trying the other network connection. Pointing the DNS to the static address on the secondary connection wont suffice either because it's torrents I'm trying to stop from downloading through the other connection not browsing.

I've done a bunch of searching, what I'm trying to find out is if there is a way to disable internet but allow LAN traffic on a network connection. Hopefully with it being set in the software Windows will then always seek internet through the other connection. Any recommendations and other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in adavnce

 

[soundguruman]

If you install Panda Internet security, you can selectively block or allow any connection from any application.

 

[zyfa]

I'm not sure if this Panda Internet Security is anything special but traditionally firewall programs will have the option to disallow a program's connection to the internet altogether, not specifcally through one network connection. Plus I don't really want to buy anything, there has to be some facility for this sort of setup, I can see it being something businesses would use. While I'm not running a server edition of Windows it is 7 business.

Anyone got some other ideas? Do you think I should post this in hardware instead?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Instead of buying a dual NIC, I would have gone with a small 4 or 5 port router. You can then use the firewall in the router to block connections to the Internet and still have LAN access.