On Mar 29, 6:39, Iggy Drougge wrote:
> I see. I really must create a lot of small networks now, so that I may
> saturate all those ports.
Well, they would really all be the same network -- they'd be all one
collision domain (any packet or collision appearing on one port would be
seen on all the others. That's what a repeater does).
> What management would be involved with a repeater? All other hubs and
> repeaters I've used have been entirely automatic.
Partitioning segments deliberately, eg to lock out a faulty host -- maybe
one that's jabbering, or responding to things it shouldn't -- or an
intruder. Monitoring traffic levels (counting packets, octets, collisions,
etc). Monitoring traffic types (unicast packets, multicast packets,
broadcast packets). Keeping a list of MAC addresses seen. Since all this
is usually done by talking to the repeater (or whatever) over the network,
the repeater itself has to have an IP address, and so there are ways to set
that up (setting it by hand, or telling it to use bootp/dhcp) or upgrade
the firmware, or set passwords for read/write operations.
> I'd think so too, but I heard on Usenet that old repeaters (the kind
which
> actually call themselves repeaters =) could slow down modern networks.
Don't
> ask me how, though.
I don't see why, if you're talking about repeaters. Old switches might
well be slow, since they work on a store-and-forward basis. A repeater
("hub") works on the bit level; a switch works at the packet level and
looks at the type and addressing of each packet before passing it on.
Newer switches use ASICs to do this in hardware at wire speed, older ones
use more conventional processing (or a combination).
> >> What does partitioning actually entail?
>
> >See above. Some more modern 3Com hubs also have the capability to split
> >the unit into segments (eg, the SuperStack II PS 40 hubs and others can
> >have 4 segments) but assigning ports to different segments isn't usually
> >called partitioning.
>
> IOW it's just a glorified OFF switch. =)
Partitioning, is, yes. Segmenting isn't, it's just a way of making one
big(ish) hub do the job of a few smaller ones.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Thu Mar 29 2001 - 02:52:16 BST