VanLUG Email Archive
Harondel J. Sibble (help@pdscc.com)
Fri, 13 Aug 1999 19:05:47 -0700
On 13 Aug 99, at 17:35, Shane Wegner wrote:
> Thanks for the note. I think I might have to scrap the Linux router idea
> unless I setup two of them. I have a bunch of 386 and 486 machines on the
> network as well which have to be 10mbps only because I can't find 100mbps
> isa nics? Do they exist?
uh, why? pop 3 nics in the router, one at 100baseT and 2 at 10baseT (one is
for your slow net and one is your external card connected to the adsl box.
I'm not sure if this is *easily* possible with the edge router as I've never
tried it and none of the clients I set it up for have ever had the
requirement. Basically the edge is just a slimmed down linux distro, so
there's no real reason why it couldn't do it. Stuart or Richard, any
comments.
Yes 100baseT isa nics exist, but you'd be hard pressed to find one...
> So I'm thinking about this switch thing. Can you give me an example of a
> switch? Is it like a hub except that it can do both 10 and 100mbps. Is
> that the sort of thing a sisco router would do or is that completely
> different?
Well a switch is like a hub, except when it isn't! How's that for clarity?!
; - P
an example, hmm, cisco's got tons of em, rather expensive though, unless you
have say a hub you want to trade in, then they will give you a port by port
basis trade in allowance that reduces the cost quite dramatically.
ie you have say a 24 port 3com Superstack II Hub like I do, and you want a 24
port cisco switch, then they'd give you something like $900 tradein (not the
exact figure but pretty close, its been a while since I sold any cisco stuff
and the seminar where they discussed all this was some time ago) If you are
interested I can dig out my notes for ya.
So an example, well look here...
http://www.dlink.com/products/switches/dss8plus/
one of the major diffs between a hub and a switch is that the bandwidth isn't
shared in the same way. Switches memorize the mac addresses of the nics
plugged into the various ports and will only send traffic destined for a
specific mac address to the port it is connected to, rather than sending it
to all the ports like in a hub. This effectively reduces your bandwidth
useage and allows the network to run much faster as it is effectively
segmented.
Problem is, that even if you deploy a switch, you still need the kind of
security that a good firewall can provide, the security vis a vis mac
addresses provdided by a switch is rudimentary security at best, and since
ifconfig in linux (at least on RH5.x+) allows you to change the mac address
that the nic acts as......
I think that about covers it, anybody wanna add a few lines or correct some
errors I may have made?
PS
more general background info on switches can be found here:
http://www.linksys.com/products/switchintro.htm
and here
http://www.helmig.com/j_helmig/switch.htm
Harondel J. Sibble
Sibble Computer Consulting
Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user.
help@pdscc.com (pgp enabled) http://www.pdscc.com
(604) 739-3709 (voice/fax) (604) 686-2253 (pager)
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