Hey all. I'm trying to get to the bottom of an Ethernet concept:
If an Ethernet switch has no switching/forwarding table entry for a given MAC, does it flood/broadcast BY DESIGN (e.g. to behave like a good old-fashioned Ethenet HUB) or is unicast flooding an accidental characteristic of the way Ethernet switches work (i.e. down on the metal)?
For example, I could imagine an Ethernet switch design which the switch always returns null in the switching table for FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF, triggering a broadcast/flood, thus other bona-fide null (expired) lookups also happen to flood, BUT that this behavior is not strictly required to function.
Clarification on this detail would be much appreciated. _______________________________________________ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
