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Date:      Thu, 8 Apr 2004 07:35:10 +0300
From:      Vlad GALU <dudu@diaspar.rdsnet.ro>
To:        freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Stupid question about managed switches
Message-ID:  <20040408073510.798d13b1.dudu@diaspar.rdsnet.ro>
In-Reply-To: <20040408011945.S40836@ganymede.hub.org>
References:  <20040408011945.S40836@ganymede.hub.org>

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"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

|
|Please excuse this, but my experience with them is zilch ... am going
|with the HP Procurve 2826(?) Layer2/Layer3 switch, as was suggested,
|but I'm curious as to how they work ...
|
|For instance, I know when I setup a router, I have an IN IP and an OUT
|IP configured ... but, with a managed switch, what do I have?
	
	Depends on whether you assign an address to a port or not. Imagine a
layer3 switch as a router with many interfaces that can do switching as
well as routing. You can use it as a router and as a switch at the same
time. But you can't mix them in functionality (eg. to have a port set in
both routing and switching mode).

	As for the layer2 configuration, you then have VLANs, VTP
domains/servers/clients, MAC address tables and so on.

	Don't mistake one functionality for the other. They're meant to be kept
separately :)

	One special case though is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching). This
new technology lets an equipment (a switch) take switching decisions
based on factors other than layer2. For example, you can shape the _IP_
traffic coming from certain switch ports, or send ethernet frames to a
port or another based on their _IP_ source address. It's being used more
and more for providing metropolitan VPN services and DiffServ.

|
|For instance, right now, I have a default gateway on the providers
|switch of 200.46.204.1 ... and my servers are .2, .3, .4 and .5 ... if
|I put a managed switch, vs the unmanaged we have now, between the
|providers switch and the servers, does my default route then change to
|be the switch itself?  Or is the 'login part' of the switch thought of
|the same way as adding just another server to the network, for
|connectivity purposes?
|

	As I said, you have to set an IP on your switch only if you want to.
Otherwise you can use it as a layer2 separator for the two connections.

|As I said, stupid question, but for someone whose never played with a
|managed switch before ... :(
|
|Thanks ..
|
|----
|Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services
|(http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy 
|            ICQ: 7615664
|_______________________________________________
|freebsd-net@freebsd.org mailing list
|http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-net
|To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-net-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"


----
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