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Date:      Tue, 16 Jan 2001 11:59:50 -0800
From:      David Greenman <dg@root.com>
To:        peter@sysadmin-inc.com
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: A really easy one for you networking guru's 
Message-ID:  <200101161959.LAA17383@implode.root.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:19:32 PST." <000301c0800a$6757a7c0$46010a0a@sysadmininc.com> 

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>What is a bridge.
>
>I've seen a lot of posts recently about bridging-firewalls, or even a simple
>network bridge.
>
>What is a network bridge, and how is it different from a 'leave node' that
>can forward packets between interfaces.

   A bridge is a device that forwards packets between two LANs at the layer-2
(MAC address) level. An ethernet switch is essentially a bridge that does
this with more than just two physical LANs. One of the characterists of a
bridge is that there is no routing protocol involved - the bridge learns
the topology by watching the traffic going over the two LANs and only forwards
packets that it needs to (i.e. those that aren't on the same physical LAN).

-DG

David Greenman
Co-founder, The FreeBSD Project - http://www.freebsd.org
President, TeraSolutions, Inc. - http://www.terasolutions.com
Pave the road of life with opportunities.


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