Network Switch Questions

[perfectshot]

Hey guys:

Just curious to find out how it went. Was it successful? What did you end up doing?

Edited August 18, 2021 by TVwazhere

[Alex Atkin UK]

17 minutes ago, perfectshot said:

Hey guys: Just curious to find out how it went. Was it successful? What did you end up doing?

I'd assume they bought a switch but yes, its easy to bridge all the ports in Windows or Linux.  The only good reason to do so is if you already have that PC running so the only extra power cost is the extra ethernet ports.

[perfectshot]

This whole idea of bridging sounds kind of crazy. Wouldn’t that be more of a hub, rather than a switch. I thought I had missed something for three years that someone had an actual switch going like that on an x86 chassis.

[Alex Atkin UK]

22 minutes ago, perfectshot said:

This whole idea of bridging sounds kind of crazy. Wouldn’t that be more of a hub, rather than a switch. I thought I had missed something for three years that someone had an actual switch going like that on an x86 chassis.

No, a bridge (in this context at least) is a software switch, forwarding packets onto the corresponding port necessary to reach the destination MAC address.

 

This is also how WiFi routers/Access Points work to connect WiFi to the LAN.  Its why its CPU intensive as the switching is done entirely in software whereas a REAL switch has custom logic that can do it much faster and using very little power.

[perfectshot]

That kind of explains it somewhat, thank you. I thought there was something more to it, other than the standard Window/Linux functionality that allows packet forwarding at a slow speed.

 

I see that you are using pfSenese. What do you think of lateralaccessdevice?

 

[TVwazhere]

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