From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Mar 24 19:27: 0 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mercury.webnology.com (mercury.webnology.com [209.155.51.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BBD0914D49 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 1999 19:26:57 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jooji@webnology.com) Received: from localhost (jooji@localhost) by mercury.webnology.com (8.9.2/8.9.2) with SMTP id VAA18646; Wed, 24 Mar 1999 21:28:03 -0600 (CST) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 21:28:03 -0600 (CST) From: "Jasper O'Malley" To: Dennis Cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: RE: switch vs bridge In-Reply-To: <199903242319.SAA04541@etinc.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Dennis wrote: > It seems to me that a *switch* (assuming that you are talking about an > ethernet switch and not the new-fangled IP switches) would have addresses > hard-coded to specific segments) whereas a bridge generally learns them > from traffic. None of the switches I've worked with (BayStack 350T/F, Bay System 5000 Switch Modules, Cisco 2900 series) have required hard-coding addresses. All in all, I feel completely comfortable characterizing them as "multiport bridges." > A switch should be immune to loops... No more so than a simple bridge, in my experience. > bridges ARE in fact switches, Bridges and switches, switches are bridges. It's all semantics. They both switch traffic between ports based on layer 2 addressing. Cheers, Mick The Reverend Jasper P. O'Malley dotdot:jooji@webnology.com Systems Administrator ringring:asktheadmiral Webnology, LLC woowoo:http://www.webnology.com/~jooji To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message