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Date:      Tue, 15 Feb 2000 09:13:04 -0500
From:      Jim C <jconner@enterit.com>
To:        "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net>, <cjclark@home.com>
Cc:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Routed and public IPs
Message-ID:  <4.2.0.58.20000215090338.00a4c548@mail.enterit.com>
In-Reply-To: <000e01bf77b7$846b2c80$509ec5d1@webserver>

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At 06.18 15.02.00 -0700, Duke Normandin wrote:
>On Monday, February 14, 2000 11:45 AM Crist J. Clark wrote:
>
> >On Mon, Feb 14, 2000 at 10:35:19AM -0700, Duke Normandin wrote:
> >> Although I'm not involved in this thread, directly or indirectly,
> >> I want to thank you for such a great reply. I can't believe you
> >> and Ruslan et al -- I'm green with envy. I've saved this thread
> >> for future reference, however would you mind defining for me (in
> >> laymen's terms) the concept of bridge(4)ing? Something like:
> >> "bridging is using a box to bridge a gap between (public & private
> >> IPs??) or ?? ". I don't want your info to go to waste on this
> >> newbie, so I thought I'd ask. Tia...
> >
> >A bridge is a network device that operates at layer two of the IP
> >stack, the link layer. Hubs and switches are the other most common

I thought hubs operated at layer one and switches operated at layer 
two...and of course routers are at layer three.

Just tryin to get the info...

Jim

> >devices that work at layer two. A bridge does not know anything about
> >IP addresses, and most often, it simply forwards _all_ packets it
> >receives on one interface to the other. However, it is possible to run
> >a filter on the bridge, as was the whole point of the thread you are
> >following.
> >
> >I personally have only used a simple bridge that passes all
> >packets. Some users want two computers (running different OSes) in
> >their offices. There is only one RJ-45 connection coming into the
> >room. Rather than give them each a hub, one computer gets an extra NIC
> >and bridges for the other. As far as the second computer is concerned,
> >its on the same LAN.
>
>
>Thanks....to your reply and a tutorial I found on the net, I now
>understand that a bridge is an external, physical device. Quoting
>this tutorial:
>
>"In contrast to hubs, which are physical-level devices, bridges
>operate on Ethernet frames and thus are layer-2 devices. In fact,
>bridges are full-fledged packet switches that forward and filter
>frames using the LAN destination addresses. When a frame comes into
>a bridge interface, the bridge does not just copy the frame onto all
>of the other interfaces. Instead, the bridge examines the destination
>address of the frame and attempts to forward the frame on the
>interface that leads to the destination."
>
>However, I'm confused with your term "physical-level device" as
>opposed to "link-level (layer-2) devices. Are not both physical
>devices? Do not both operate on Ethernet frames? I now understand
>that a bridge will "examine" an Ethernet frame, as opposed to a hub,
>i.e., "in-one-ear, out-the-other" ;^). Thanks for your time.
>
>-duke
>
>
>
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