About multihoming

If you have a PCI-based Macintosh server, you can use AppleTalk multihoming to divide your network into multiple segments and provide AppleShare file sharing service over AppleTalk. You can have up to four network segments connected to your computer. If routers are installed, users on different network segments can connect to each other's computers to use Mac OS personal file sharing.

On networks that heavily use AppleTalk services, multihoming can significantly reduce network traffic and increase the speed of Web and file services.

Note: You cannot use multihoming when printing over AppleTalk or using TCP-based services. When you use multihoming, TCP is available only over the default port in the TCP/IP control panel.

You can attach network segments to

•	the server's built-in Ethernet port
•	one of the LocalTalk ports (the printer port or the modem port) if your computer has them
•	two PCI network interface cards, which can support the following network types:
	• Ethernet (10 or 100 megabits per second) • Token Ring • Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) • Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

The following illustration shows a computer that is connected to four network segments:

A Ethernet connection B LocalTalk connection C Other network connections

About routers and zones

With AppleTalk multihoming, users on one network segment cannot see computers and other network devices on other network segments unless you use routers to connect the segments.

The following illustration shows a network in which routers provide users in each segment with access to computers and devices in other segments.

The Archives server is visible in the Chooser in both zones.		Zone 2
Zone 1		Router