From owner-freebsd-net Wed Mar 24 13:23:43 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from labinfo.iet.unipi.it (labinfo.iet.unipi.it [131.114.9.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 589EE1503D for ; Wed, 24 Mar 1999 13:23:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it) Received: from localhost (luigi@localhost) by labinfo.iet.unipi.it (8.6.5/8.6.5) id UAA11367; Wed, 24 Mar 1999 20:08:15 +0100 From: Luigi Rizzo Message-Id: <199903241908.UAA11367@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> Subject: Re: switch vs bridge (fwd) To: wes@softweyr.com (Wes Peters) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 20:08:14 +0100 (MET) Cc: pete@sms.fi, billf@chc-chimes.com, peter@cyber1.net, freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <36F95545.6B1F40C0@softweyr.com> from "Wes Peters" at Mar 24, 99 02:12:18 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1413 Sender: owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > is equally the same for bridges and switches. (since they are the same) > > Try these on for size: it seems to me that in the definitions below "switching" is the action and "bridge" is the device performing it. > MAC-Layer Bridge - A device used to forward data between LANs at layer two, > by automatically filtering out traffic which is local to each LAN, while > forwarding on traffic which is not local to each LAN. All broadcasts > and multicasts, as well as all traffic with a destination address which > has not been learned by the bridge, is forwarded. > > MAC-Layer Switching - LAN data transferred through a network based on the > source and destination address contained in the MAC header of the frame. > Essentially the same as bridging, but almost always employing dedicated > hardware to perform the switching. quite a few commercial bridges do use "dedicated hardware", only hackers use software based solutions (PCBRIDGE in the early days, linux/freebsd based solutions these days...) cheers luigi -----------------------------------+------------------------------------- Luigi RIZZO . EMAIL: luigi@iet.unipi.it . Dip. di Ing. dell'Informazione HTTP://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/ . Universita` di Pisa TEL/FAX: +39-050-568.533/522 . via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy) -----------------------------------+------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message