How can i make the NLB address as the default address that outbound packets are sent from ? the case is like this. I made a NLB of two nodes. Both nodes are connected to the external switch ( which is before the router , and PCs connected can have internet IP address ). and the external switch is connected to the DMZ port. Due to that i only have a few internet IP addresses , so i set the two servers DMZ addresses ( 192.168.254.* ), and i set the address for the NLB an internet address. And I added two gateway addresses on the NIC, the first is internal IP, and the second is external IP. And it seems OK for a moment , BUT sometime later , internet users cannot visit the applications on the servers successfully. e.g. internet user can telnet <NLB external IP address> 25 connected with the SMTP port, but no welcome msg shows up. i think it's because a half connected state. Internet users can actually connect to the NLB servers , but the servers don't know exactly which gateway to go, sometimes Windows choose the right one ( external IP gateway ) , but othertimes Windows choose the internal gateway. When windows choose the wrong gateway, the Servers respond the internet user's request through the internal gateway and not the external gateway ( through which the request comes in ). I thought if i could set only one gateway ( i.e. the external ), and tried. in this case, the internet users can successfully visit the servers , but the servers cannot go out to the internet. If i ping internet on the servers, Windows always choose the internal address as the "sent-from" address, so it cannot send packets to the external gateway. how can i make Windows sending packets from the NIC address ? mysignature

Having two gateways is not a correct practice to be followed. We should always have only one gateway on one machine in the TCP/IP properties of the NIC. If you have more than 1 NIC & want to have another gateway for communication purposes, we have to add the static route entry added to the machine. To add a static route, you need to run the command : route add destination mask subnetmask gateway e.g. route add 10.11.0.0 mask 255.255.252.0 192.168.1.1 -p Here 10.11.0.0 is the subnet ip range for NIC 1 & 255.255.252.0 is the subnet mask for NIC 1 & 192.168.1.1 is the default gateway for the NIC2. Regards, Shweta Shweta Katke Support Engineer | Microsoft Enterprise Platform Support - Networking | Shweta - MSFT

As well as Shweta's comments above, a gateway address must be "reachable". That means that it must be in the same IP subnet as the client machine and can be reached using its MAC address (obtained using ARP). Specifying a gateway is some other subnet is a waste of time (as well as confusing the routing software). Bill