On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 11:08 PM, Karl Fife <[email protected]> wrote: > Answering my own question: > > Unicast flooding is fundamental. Unicast flooding in response to a null > switching table is the only way for a frame to reach the intended host, say, > if the switching table had an entry which expired before it could be > re-populated with the host's arp reply. > > > > On 8/16/2016 2:19 PM, Karl Fife wrote: >> >> 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. >> >> >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________
Thanks for answering this question. So many things go unanswered anymore! _______________________________________________ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
