Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-08 Thread Stan Hoeppner
Celejar put forth on 9/7/2010 6:58 PM:

 I suppose, but since the vast majority of applications of cheap
 switches don't require this capability, wouldn't it be cheaper to leave
 it out, and only include it as an extra feature for those who need it?
 
 I don't actually know what it costs them to include the RAM for the MAC
 table, though; perhaps it's negligible, so they just always throw it in.

Considering the cost of the entire switch IC in a $10 USD 8 port switch
(which includes an external AC/DC transformer and a 3 foot ethernet
patch cable for the price) is less than $1 in 10k unit quantities,  the
cost of say 64KB RAM on that switch chip is going to be in the 10 cent
range or less.

The reason many/most cheap 4/8/16 port switches have an 8192 entry MAC
table is because they're all likely using the same switch chip from a
single vendor, and this chip was designed with an 8192 entry MAC table.
 The chip is cheap, reliable, and available in large quantities, so
everyone uses it.

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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-08 Thread Celejar
On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:21:58 -0500
Stan Hoeppner s...@hardwarefreak.com wrote:

...

 Considering the cost of the entire switch IC in a $10 USD 8 port switch
 (which includes an external AC/DC transformer and a 3 foot ethernet
 patch cable for the price) is less than $1 in 10k unit quantities,  the
 cost of say 64KB RAM on that switch chip is going to be in the 10 cent
 range or less.
 
 The reason many/most cheap 4/8/16 port switches have an 8192 entry MAC
 table is because they're all likely using the same switch chip from a
 single vendor, and this chip was designed with an 8192 entry MAC table.
  The chip is cheap, reliable, and available in large quantities, so
 everyone uses it.

Makes sense, thanks.

Celejar
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread Jesús M. Navarro
Hi, owens:

On Tuesday 07 September 2010 01:08:40 ow...@netptc.net wrote:
[...]

 Boyd
 I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
 WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.  IIRC it was the
 vendors who screwed things up by introducing such products as
 swithcing hub

For one time this is not because of marketing: a switch *is* a switching hub 
just as a hub is a multiport repeater.  They are just plain descriptions of 
what they do.


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread owens



 Original Message 
From: b...@iguanasuicide.net
To: ow...@netptc.net
Subject: Re: Re (2): Linux hub
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2010 18:45:33 -0500

In 380-2201091623840...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: b...@iguanasuicide.net
In 380-22010905162433...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: peasth...@shaw.ca
From:   PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch,
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including
physical,
data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).

Lots of terminology confusion.  It used to be hubs were at level
1,
switches at level 2, routers at level 3 and gateways above level
3.
Larry

TL;DR: That's an over-simplification or a case of nostalgia.

I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.

I love to see an actual ISO or ITU document that provides a
normative 
definition of the any of those terms.  Since you are claiming such a
document 
exists, perhaps you could provide a URL, ISBN, or other reference?
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I'll see if I can dig up a reference.  Remember this was in the 80s.
Larry


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread owens



 Original Message 
From: jesus.nava...@undominio.net
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Re (2): Linux hub
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 16:10:55 +0200

Hi, owens:

On Tuesday 07 September 2010 01:08:40 ow...@netptc.net wrote:
[...]

 Boyd
 I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
 WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.  IIRC it was the
 vendors who screwed things up by introducing such products as
 swithcing hub

For one time this is not because of marketing: a switch *is* a
switching hub 
just as a hub is a multiport repeater.  They are just plain
descriptions of 
what they do.


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dominio.net

Somewhat OT but I found more modern definitions of these terms in
the IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms (I
have the Sixth Edition)
Larry




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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
On Tuesday, September 07, 2010 10:13:51 you wrote:
 Original Message 
From: b...@iguanasuicide.net
In 380-2201091623840...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.

I love to see an actual ISO or ITU document that provides a
normative
definition of the any of those terms.  Since you are claiming such a
document
exists, perhaps you could provide a URL, ISBN, or other reference?

I'll see if I can dig up a reference.  Remember this was in the 80s.

ISO tends to keep documents around.  For example, the drafts for the C89 
standard, written during the 80s are still available from the C language 
working group's web site.  (Of course, drafts aren't generally considered 
normative.)  The standard itself may even still be available from the web 
store, even though it has been supplanted by the C99 standard.  For less 
volatile areas under the auspices of ISO, much older standards are still 
available from the web store.
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread Celejar
On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:04:42 -0500
Stan Hoeppner s...@hardwarefreak.com wrote:

 Celejar put forth on 9/6/2010 8:42 PM:
 
  I'm curious; especially for the cheap switches, why would they need to
  store so many MAC addresses?  What's the use case for a cheap switch
  actually seeing thousands of MACs since 'boot'?
 
 Scenario:  I work for a huge company that has 7,000 employees in a
 single campus, with more than that many PCs, Servers, printers, etc,
 each having a MAC address.  I'm doing layer 2 switching campus wide, and
 only routing at the network edge to/from the internet/wan provider.
 
 I'm in a tech lab, and I need to jack in a small switch for testing
 servers.  People all over the campus are going to need to hit the test
 servers.  Thus, this little 8 port switch in my lab needs to be able to
 store more than 7,000 mac addresses.
 
 Maybe not the best scenario, but it's a valid one.

I suppose, but since the vast majority of applications of cheap
switches don't require this capability, wouldn't it be cheaper to leave
it out, and only include it as an extra feature for those who need it?

I don't actually know what it costs them to include the RAM for the MAC
table, though; perhaps it's negligible, so they just always throw it in.

Celejar
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread John Hasler
Celejar writes:
 I suppose, but since the vast majority of applications of cheap
 switches don't require this capability, wouldn't it be cheaper to
 leave it out, and only include it as an extra feature for those who
 need it?

They have to have a MAC table and with current technology it costs no
more to store 8K MAC addresses then 8.
-- 
John Hasler


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-07 Thread Celejar
On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:18:49 -0500
John Hasler jhas...@debian.org wrote:

 Celejar writes:
  I suppose, but since the vast majority of applications of cheap
  switches don't require this capability, wouldn't it be cheaper to
  leave it out, and only include it as an extra feature for those who
  need it?
 
 They have to have a MAC table and with current technology it costs no
 more to store 8K MAC addresses then 8.

I suspected that that might be the case.

Celejar
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
In 4c847f8a.3060...@hardwarefreak.com, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
Layer 2 ethernet switches, the bulk of all sold to date, don't have any
knowledge of packets.  They don't store information about seen
packets.

Packets exist at layer 3 in OSI.

Sorry, I was overusing the term packet.  I was not referring to an IP 
packet.  I was referring to an Ethernet frame.  It's still packet-ized data, 
rather than something like a TCP stream.  Switches are quite aware of Ethernet 
frames.  I've even uttered the the phrase Ethernet packet and most people 
understood what I meant, even though no such animal actually exists.

I own a switch (actually, it is a roommate's) that operates at layers 2 and 3, 
does QOS, Vlans, STP, etc.  It does not handle true routing, as all this 
configuration is either static or based on recently seen related packets.  It 
doesn't understand BGP, OSPF, or any of the other routing protocols.

Processing and possibly emitting data from one of the routing protocols is the 
main requirement to call something a router in my mind.  Anything less is just 
a switch.  Some of them are quite smart; others are relatively dumb.  But, 
they are still smart devices when compared to a hub, cable, repeater, or 
other device that operates with no internal state.
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread owens



 Original Message 
From: b...@iguanasuicide.net
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Re (2): Linux hub
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 14:56:53 -0500

In 380-22010905162433...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: peasth...@shaw.ca
From:  PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch,
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including
physical,
data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).

Lots of terminology confusion.  It used to be hubs were at level 1,
switches at level 2, routers at level 3 and gateways above level 3.
Larry

That's not quite true; it's never been that clear cut, although some
would 
like to believe that.

Hubs are dumb devices, almost always implemented entirely in
hardware, and 
as such basically ignored everything above layer 1.  Mostly they
should be 
avoided for TCP/IP over Ethernet, since they generate more traffic
then 
required by Ethernet (which is layer 1 and 2).  In hubs, the most
complex IC 
would not be complex enough to call a CPU in modern times.

Switches are smart devices, but not traditionally programmable. 
They do use 
some RAM to store information about seen packets in order to make
decisions 
about future packets.  They do not use out-of-band information to
make 
switching decisions.  With TCP/IP over Ethernet, they generally
operate at 
layer 2 (Ethernet, which is also layer 1) or 3.  Switches that do
understand a 
layer above 2 will generally fall back to layer 2 when encountering
a higher 
layer protocol they do not recognize.  Switches generally have a
CPU, for 
handling the configuration interface, which might be extensive, even
on layer 
2 switches, given all the parts of the Ethernet protocol.  However,
the 
hardware is designed so that packets do not have to travel through
the CPU 
bus.

Routers are programmable devices.  They have detailed configurations
plus 
static routes and routing rules.  In addition, they generally use
out-of-band 
information (like BGP etc.) to update their routes and rules in
near-real-
time.  They likely drop data that doesn't correspond to a layer 3
protocol 
they understand, but could be configured to route it somewhere. 
They will 
inspect layer 4 and possibly above data to aid their layer 3
routing.  They 
will certainly have a CPU, but they also have switch-like hardware
so that 
packets do not have to travel through the CPU bus.  Even packets
that need to 
travel to the CPU for special processing may be routed but also
saved so that 
traffic doesn't have to wait on the CPU; alternatively there may be 
specialized processors have more bandwidth then the CPU but much
more limited 
functionality.

A PC can pretend to be a router, switch, or even a hub.  However,
unless it 
has some fairly specialized hardware, high load will reveal the PC. 
The main 
cause of this is saturation of the bus between the network card and
the CPU, 
since all the packets have to flow to the CPU and back.

Gateway is a much more generic term, but basically it connects your
network 
with an outside network (or the Internet).  It will generally have
at least 
minimal routing capabilities, but it may simply be an intermediary,
linking a 
single switch/router to a single other gateway.  However, it may
also be a 
feature-complete router and firewall along with doing layer 5-7
inspection to 
enforce network policy.  For most personal and small business needs,
it can 
simply be a PC; the traffic to outside networks being too
constrained to need 
more bandwidth then is available across a modern PC bus, especially
if all 
that bandwidth is through a single connection to a single ISP at any
one time.  
Once external traffic reaches some level though, you'll need
specialized 
hardware, so your gateway will likely be an enterprise router.

The specialized hardware that routers need, basically a
programmable version 
of the hardware in a switch, was/is one of the main roadblocks on
the way to a 
optical-only Internet backbone.  For the longest time, even when the
links 
where optical cable, the routers where traditional electronic
devices, so that 
the signal had to be decoded/encoded from optical to electric to
optical which 
can introduce unnecessary delays.

TL;DR: That's an over-simplification or a case of nostalgia.
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Boyd
I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.  IIRC it was the
vendors who screwed things up by introducing such products as
swithcing hub
L


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
In 380-2201091623840...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: b...@iguanasuicide.net
In 380-22010905162433...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: peasth...@shaw.ca
From: PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch,
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including
physical,
data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).

Lots of terminology confusion.  It used to be hubs were at level 1,
switches at level 2, routers at level 3 and gateways above level 3.
Larry

TL;DR: That's an over-simplification or a case of nostalgia.

I'm not disagreeing with you in practice but many years ago these
WERE the definitions the ITU and ISO dealt with.

I love to see an actual ISO or ITU document that provides a normative 
definition of the any of those terms.  Since you are claiming such a document 
exists, perhaps you could provide a URL, ISBN, or other reference?
-- 
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b...@iguanasuicide.net   ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread Celejar
On Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:43:38 -0500
Stan Hoeppner s...@hardwarefreak.com wrote:

...

 A traditional el cheapo desktop 8 port ethernet switch, such as the $10
 Rosewill 10/100 switch on my desk, has a single simple 8x8 crossbar
 switch ASIC, enough RAM to store 8192 MAC addresses, and possibly a
...

 The larger switch ASICs cost far more than those in $10 eight port
 switches, have more memory for storing MAC addresses, and have extensive

I'm curious; especially for the cheap switches, why would they need to
store so many MAC addresses?  What's the use case for a cheap switch
actually seeing thousands of MACs since 'boot'?

Celejar
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread Stan Hoeppner
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. put forth on 9/6/2010 6:16 AM:
 But, 
 they are still smart devices when compared to a hub, cable, repeater, or 
 other device that operates with no internal state.

Agreed in that smart here simply means the device looks at the content
of a frame, specifically the target MAC address, and decides which port
to transmit the frame out of based on that data.  An ethernet hub, or
repeater, simply retransmits electrical,or sometimes optical, signals.
Some switches are much much smarter than others, making low end switches
look more akin to a hub.

We're on the same page.  I was being a bit pedantic.

-- 
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-06 Thread Stan Hoeppner
Celejar put forth on 9/6/2010 8:42 PM:

 I'm curious; especially for the cheap switches, why would they need to
 store so many MAC addresses?  What's the use case for a cheap switch
 actually seeing thousands of MACs since 'boot'?

Scenario:  I work for a huge company that has 7,000 employees in a
single campus, with more than that many PCs, Servers, printers, etc,
each having a MAC address.  I'm doing layer 2 switching campus wide, and
only routing at the network edge to/from the internet/wan provider.

I'm in a tech lab, and I need to jack in a small switch for testing
servers.  People all over the campus are going to need to hit the test
servers.  Thus, this little 8 port switch in my lab needs to be able to
store more than 7,000 mac addresses.

Maybe not the best scenario, but it's a valid one.

-- 
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Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread peasthope
From:   Andrei Popescu andreimpope...@gmail.com
Date:   Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:08:04 +0300
 AFAICT, what you ask for is a gateway/router. Here is a very short 
 tutorial: ...

Thanks.  http://carnot.yi.org/NetworksPage.html shows that dalton 
and joule have been performing this function for some time; years 
in fact.  The question of the previous message about hub or switch 
was asked with the intention of adding the specific capability of 
transmitting communication of carnot through dalton rather than 
through the Allied Telesis 3612TR.  A salient detail is that 
carnot has a public address whereas a masqueraded machine under 
a router typically has a private address.  Further details are 
in the extensive discussion with Bob Proulx over recent days,
under Subject: Configuration for a Linux router 

Regards, ... Peter E.

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Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread peasthope
From:   Ariel_Lagan” i...@ariellagana.com.ar
Date:   Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:10:23 -0300
 I don't know if it's possible to make a hub with multiples NICs using 
 Linux, ...

My intuition is that a Linux hub is possible but inept.  A Linux 
switch should work on the same hardware and be more efficient.
I'll study bridge-utils.  Thanks,... Peter E.

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Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread peasthope
From:   William Cooper wkcoo...@gmail.com
Date:   Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:26:00 -0400
 ... Debian machine with 5 nics as a switch between multiple network segments 
 ...
   ...
 http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/bridgelooks

That should be helpful.  Thanks,  ... Peter E.

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Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread peasthope
From:   PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Date:   Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:58:26 +0800
 Switch/Hub is not those things and OS thould do, Switch work at the layer of 
 Link, ...

Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch, 
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including physical, 
data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).
Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch#Layer-specific_functionality .

 http://www.linuxhorizon.ro/bonding.html

Will read.  Thanks, ... Peter E.

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RE: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread owens



 Original Message 
From: peasth...@shaw.ca
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: RE: Re (2): Linux hub
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 08:44:00 -0700

From: PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:58:26 +0800
 Switch/Hub is not those things and OS thould do, Switch work at
the layer of Link, ...

Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch, 
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including physical,

data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).
Also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch#Layer-specific_functional
ity .

 http://www.linuxhorizon.ro/bonding.html

Will read.  Thanks, ... Peter E.

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valid

Lots of terminology confusion.  It used to be hubs were at level 1,
switches at level 2, routers at level 3 and gateways above level 3.
Larry




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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
In 171056613.33698.296...@heaviside.invalid, peasth...@shaw.ca wrote:
A salient detail is that
carnot has a public address whereas a masqueraded machine under
a router typically has a private address.

Masquerading is not a required part of routing.  While NAT and similar 
masquerading technologies have become very popular (as we are running out of 
IPv4 addresses), your average TCP/IP connection will go through more routers 
that do not masquerade the connection than router that do masquerade the 
connection.
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Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread peasthope
From:   Stan Hoeppner s...@hardwarefreak.com
Date:   Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:28:13 -0500
 What exactly are you trying to accomplish?  What is your goal here? 

Discussed extensively with Bob Proulx over the recent few 
days.  Open this page.
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2010/09/author.html
Links are visible under author Bob Proulx and subject 
Configuration for a linux router   Also under 
author peasthope.

 ... we'll tell you what you need to accomplish it.

Several pertinent links were posted this morning.  I'll 
read and post a more specific question when necessary.

Thanks, ... Peter E.

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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
In 380-22010905162433...@netptc.net, ow...@netptc.net wrote:
 Original Message 
From: peasth...@shaw.ca
From:PT M. pen...@gmail.com
Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch,
Switches may operate at one or more OSI layers, including physical,
data link, network, or transport (i.e., end-to-end).

Lots of terminology confusion.  It used to be hubs were at level 1,
switches at level 2, routers at level 3 and gateways above level 3.
Larry

That's not quite true; it's never been that clear cut, although some would 
like to believe that.

Hubs are dumb devices, almost always implemented entirely in hardware, and 
as such basically ignored everything above layer 1.  Mostly they should be 
avoided for TCP/IP over Ethernet, since they generate more traffic then 
required by Ethernet (which is layer 1 and 2).  In hubs, the most complex IC 
would not be complex enough to call a CPU in modern times.

Switches are smart devices, but not traditionally programmable.  They do use 
some RAM to store information about seen packets in order to make decisions 
about future packets.  They do not use out-of-band information to make 
switching decisions.  With TCP/IP over Ethernet, they generally operate at 
layer 2 (Ethernet, which is also layer 1) or 3.  Switches that do understand a 
layer above 2 will generally fall back to layer 2 when encountering a higher 
layer protocol they do not recognize.  Switches generally have a CPU, for 
handling the configuration interface, which might be extensive, even on layer 
2 switches, given all the parts of the Ethernet protocol.  However, the 
hardware is designed so that packets do not have to travel through the CPU 
bus.

Routers are programmable devices.  They have detailed configurations plus 
static routes and routing rules.  In addition, they generally use out-of-band 
information (like BGP etc.) to update their routes and rules in near-real-
time.  They likely drop data that doesn't correspond to a layer 3 protocol 
they understand, but could be configured to route it somewhere.  They will 
inspect layer 4 and possibly above data to aid their layer 3 routing.  They 
will certainly have a CPU, but they also have switch-like hardware so that 
packets do not have to travel through the CPU bus.  Even packets that need to 
travel to the CPU for special processing may be routed but also saved so that 
traffic doesn't have to wait on the CPU; alternatively there may be 
specialized processors have more bandwidth then the CPU but much more limited 
functionality.

A PC can pretend to be a router, switch, or even a hub.  However, unless it 
has some fairly specialized hardware, high load will reveal the PC.  The main 
cause of this is saturation of the bus between the network card and the CPU, 
since all the packets have to flow to the CPU and back.

Gateway is a much more generic term, but basically it connects your network 
with an outside network (or the Internet).  It will generally have at least 
minimal routing capabilities, but it may simply be an intermediary, linking a 
single switch/router to a single other gateway.  However, it may also be a 
feature-complete router and firewall along with doing layer 5-7 inspection to 
enforce network policy.  For most personal and small business needs, it can 
simply be a PC; the traffic to outside networks being too constrained to need 
more bandwidth then is available across a modern PC bus, especially if all 
that bandwidth is through a single connection to a single ISP at any one time.  
Once external traffic reaches some level though, you'll need specialized 
hardware, so your gateway will likely be an enterprise router.

The specialized hardware that routers need, basically a programmable version 
of the hardware in a switch, was/is one of the main roadblocks on the way to a 
optical-only Internet backbone.  For the longest time, even when the links 
where optical cable, the routers where traditional electronic devices, so that 
the signal had to be decoded/encoded from optical to electric to optical which 
can introduce unnecessary delays.

TL;DR: That's an over-simplification or a case of nostalgia.
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Jesús M. Navarro
Hi:

On Sunday 05 September 2010 17:14:34 peasth...@shaw.ca wrote:
 From: Andrei Popescu andreimpope...@gmail.com
 Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2010 09:08:04 +0300

  AFAICT, what you ask for is a gateway/router. Here is a very short
  tutorial: ...

 Thanks.  http://carnot.yi.org/NetworksPage.html shows that dalton
 and joule have been performing this function for some time; years
 in fact.  The question of the previous message about hub or switch 
 was asked with the intention of adding the specific capability of
 transmitting communication of carnot through dalton rather than
 through the Allied Telesis 3612TR.

There's neither carnot nor Allied Telesis 3612TR in your provided diagram 
so it's a bit difficult to follow you.  It would be better if you provided a 
complete an up-to-date diagram.

Anyway, I'll try to make use of my crystal ball:

* The ISP you connect dalton to has given you control of the public network 
142.103.107.128/25 or at least has given you some IP addresses on that range, 
right?
* dalton's eth0 is configured with the public IP 142.103.107.137/25, right?
* carnot's eth0 is configured with the public IP 142.103.107.138/25, right?
* You expect carnot's eth0 being connected to dalton's eth1 by means of a 
crossover cable, right?

If all my previous assumptions are right, then you need to configure an IP 
bridge between dalton's eth0 and eth1.  That's all.

In dalton's /etc/network/interfaces something along the following lines should 
do the trick (you should delete other ethN stanzas -you'll readd your VPN and 
other networks later, once you know your bridge is working properly, and 
you'd better have physical access to dalton since probably you'll need more 
than a try -oh, and make sure the iproute and bridge-utils packages are 
installed):

auto br0
iface br0 inet static
address 142.103.107.137
gateway 142.103.107.254
netmask 255.255.255.128
bridge_ports eth0 eth1

Cheers.


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Rick Thomas


Thanks for the informative discussion!


On Sep 5, 2010, at 3:56 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

Switches are smart devices, ... They do not use out-of-band  
information to make

switching decisions.


Does Spanning Tree Protocol and/or V-lan tagging count as out-of-band  
information?


Rick


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
On Sunday, September 05, 2010 22:51:16 you wrote:
Thanks for the informative discussion!

On Sep 5, 2010, at 3:56 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
 Switches are smart devices, ... They do not use out-of-band
 information to make
 switching decisions.

Does Spanning Tree Protocol and/or V-lan tagging count as out-of-band
information?

Vlan mapping is configuration information.  Single ports are tagged as either 
trunked (expect vlan header and process it) or vlan $n (expect packets with no 
vlan header and add it; remove vlan header when sending).

The headers themselves are in-band, since they are directly attached to the 
packet they apply to.

I suppose there might be some protocol I'm not familiar with that dynamically 
rearranges vlan mappings much the same way BGP plays with routing tables.  I 
don't believe it part of Ethernet standard, but it certainly could exist.  I 
believe a device that spoke this hypothetical protocol would be more 
appropriately called a router (or a layer 2 router).

Whether STP is on is a configuration information.  Keeping track of which MACs 
are on each port, and which ports are part of the same tree, also just 
requires memorizing information about the existing packet flow, and can be 
read from the packets themselves.

I referred to BGP as out-of-band since it contains information about how to 
route unrelated packets.  Seeing that a certain MAC/IP was visible on a 
certain port and sending packets destined to that address down that port is 
remembering information about related packets, which is what switches do.  STP 
is an extension to this process.

Some switches are less feature-complete then others and have very little (or 
nothing) in the way of configuration information.  They are barely more than a 
hub, and don't support vlans or STP, but only the base Ethernet specification.  
When they first came out, they were layer 2 devices, now they don't even 
support all our layer 2 features, but as long as they understand a bit more 
than the physical layer, they are a switch and not a hub.
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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Stan Hoeppner
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. put forth on 9/5/2010 2:56 PM:

 Switches are smart devices, but not traditionally programmable.  They do use 
 some RAM to store information about seen packets in order to make decisions 
 about future packets.

Ethernet switches are not smart devices at all, unless you're talking
about more expensive models such as Cisco units that support things such
as VLANs, layer 2 QOS, multi switch stacking, etc.

A traditional el cheapo desktop 8 port ethernet switch, such as the $10
Rosewill 10/100 switch on my desk, has a single simple 8x8 crossbar
switch ASIC, enough RAM to store 8192 MAC addresses, and possibly a
small frame buffer per port (2k to 16k), since the switching mode is
store and forward--buffering even just one 1500 byte frame can
substantially increase performance under load.

Layer 2 ethernet switches, the bulk of all sold to date, don't have any
knowledge of packets.  They don't store information about seen
packets.  The only information they store is the MAC addresses of all
the devices which have broadcast their MAC address over the wire at
power on.

Packets exist at layer 3 in OSI, and can be from any number of protocols
including IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, encapsulated fiber channel, PPPoE, PPTP, etc,
etc.  Switches are ignorant of packets.  Switches accept and pass
ethernet _frames_ which contain the packets.  And every frame passing
through a switch does go through the CPU of the switch, called the
crossbar, which is a very simple ASIC in low end switches.

Larger switches, such as some 576 (max) port core switches (24 blades
w/24 ports each), have rather large central crossbar ASICs, or multiple
smaller ones connected in a grid.  The switch ASIC on each blade card,
say a 24 port 10/100/1000 switch blade, will likely be a 26x26 crossbar,
with 24 full duplex 10/100/100 device ports, and two full duplex 10 Gb/s
back plane connections to the central switch ASIC(s).

The larger switch ASICs cost far more than those in $10 eight port
switches, have more memory for storing MAC addresses, and have extensive
management processing power.  But the core design is the same, a
crossbar switching ethernet frames in one port and out another, with or
without buffering.

Switches aren't really smart devices.  For smart, you need something
processing layer 3 and higher protocols, such as a router or firewall.

-- 
Stan


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Re: Re (2): Linux hub

2010-09-05 Thread Stan Hoeppner
Rick Thomas put forth on 9/5/2010 10:51 PM:

 Does Spanning Tree Protocol and/or V-lan tagging count as out-of-band
 information?

Yes.  As does L2TP, L2QOS, port mirroring, link aggregation (channel
bonding), etc, etc.

-- 
Stan


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