From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Nov 20 15:25:36 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA20995 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:25:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from misery.sdf.com (misery.sdf.com [204.244.210.193]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA20990 for ; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:25:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from misery.sdf.com ([204.244.213.33]) by misery.sdf.com with SMTP id <963-252>; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:49:28 -0800 Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:49:21 -0800 (PST) From: Tom Samplonius To: Joe Greco cc: Christopher Masto , hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Ipx to ip routing In-Reply-To: <199611202158.PAA07895@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Joe Greco wrote: > > Joe Greco writes: > > > Ethernet switches are not supposed to do anything other than MAC level > > > address routing. > > > > > > Switches by definition will certainly allow IP address collisions because > > > they do not have a clue what the hell an IP address is. > > > > > > The other disadvantage of switches is the potentially large amount of > > > ARP'ing that can go on to locate hosts in such a network. > > > > I guess you're not aware of some of the stuff Synoptics/Bay makes. Check it > > out sometime - it may come in handy some day. > > What I'm aware of and what a switch - by definition - is, are two > potentially different things. > > Anything that performs switching at a non-MAC layer is not an Ethernet > switch, it is something else. > > "Learn the correct terminology - it may come in handy some day." > > ... JG Thats right. What has been described sounds like a bridge, not a switch. I guess you just have a big multi-port bridge. Probably supports 802.1D for interlinking bridges. Bridges learn IP addresses of systems connected to each segement, and uses this information to direct traffic. Tom