Rosemary McGillicuddy wrote:
By mistake I bought an Ethernet 8 port Ethernet switch on an on-line
auction, I was looking for a router and got very confused with
terminology. Anyway - is it possible to network two PCs using this
switch, to share dial up modem and printer. I thought the answer was
yes, and tried MCC > Network sharing, but obviously need to do something
more, maybe in second box which is mepis.
Thanks
PS been looking at router prices and look quite a lot to me, in my
situation at present. The terms router, hub, and switch are very
confusing to me , and difficult to distinguish in on-line descriptions.
Rosemary; Here's a brief comparison for you for your BitNPieces file;
1) Hub - typically acts as a connection point for multiple PC's on one
subnet - ie; 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0. Has the UN-desired function of
transmitting all communication packets destined for one computer to ALL
computers, which can add to network traffic congestion, but hubs are
generally cheap.
Also, they only operate at one preset speed. If the hub is a 10 Mbps
hub, traffic coming from faster network cards will be slowed down to the
10Mbps transfer rate. A 100Mbps hub will allow traffic to pass through
at the highest rate of speed - 100Mbps, but 10Mbps network cards will
still only run at 10Mbps, since they're limited by their own design.
2) Switch - does the same job as a hub, but also has a chip which
remembers which IP address is connected to which port and transmits data
intended for only one PC to only that PC. This reduces network congestion.
Some switches also have a function called 'auto-switching' which will
usually adjust the respective port being used on the switch to that
speed. In some cases, a switch will also adjust any particular port to
the proper configuration if a user plugs in a cross-over cable instead
of a 'straight-thru' cable.
Other, more expensive switches have more features.
3) Router - modern routers incorporate all the usual functions of a
switch, but can also transcend (read as connect or 'route') to other
subnets, there by connecting one subnet ie; 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0 to
another subnet ie; 10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0.
Many routers also have the ability to control what kind of traffic is
allowed to pass from one subnet to the other (in much the same way as a
traffic cop works), as routers usually have a means of being configured
by the user - ie; web-based interface or client program.
Routers are often equipped with firewall programs as well and can be
used to direct specific types of traffic to specific PC's, servers, IP
addresses, etc.
4) Wireless routers typically include all the features of a router as
well as a wirless transmitter/receiver for the wireless functions. They
also include several types of encryption and traffic control for
wireless traffic security. Wireless routers can also be called 'WAP's
(Wireless Access Points) and/or WAP routers - since they are often used
as a combination box to connect multiple wireless PC's, laptop's, etc to
one common point and can be used to access the Internet and/or the local
network.
So essentially, each one is a step up the networking 'food chain' in
features and functionality. Hope that helps a bit.
--
Mr. Geek
Registered Linux User #190712
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