just to check my understanding: a 4 port card provides different capability than a 1 or 2 port card with a switch attached, yes?

thanks for all the info!

i am definitely a person who will always change the defaults for no particular reason. so I appreciate the warning. except I don’t quite know what you mean by “assignments”. do you mean like the names? eth0? or their functions? I do like the idea of having a physical jack that’s always guaranteed to allow access no matter what I foul up otherwise.

all these years I have been running my home network with a collection of routers just kind of attached together in a way that shouldn’t work due to “double nat” according to everything I ever read, but it is pretty much functional if not at all optimized. maybe if you don’t believe in double nat it won’t happen to you.

thanks! so for example: Intel Gigabit Dual PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET PCIe NIC Card EXPI9402PT NC360T which is CA$30. Does that sound right?

What’s a server card?

I’d prefer to avoid VMs if possible I never had much luck with them.

that sounds useful.

i like to keep things separate when plausible.

I was hoping to make use of one of the various computers I have cluttering this place up so I could justify continuing the collection. ;)

Do you know how to determine suitability of an existing card, or how to correctly purchase a replacement?

Does “interface” mean you need separate cards? Or you have a single card with multiple interfaces?

Is DMZ like a guest network?

I looked up “IDS/IPS” and it wounds like something I would prefer to avoid doing if I can.

The best internet I could subscribe to where I’m at is 1024 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up. I’ll add that to the post I guess it is relevant since so many people have fibre. (sigh)