On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 03:05, Richard Urwin wrote:
> > To the best of my knowledge this device does
> > not function as a switch (unless you know different).
>
> >From the Linksys support page for the EFAH05W:
>
> Switch VS. Hub.
> All Linksys Switches provide for Full-Duplex speed and cut down the
> traffic on the network by sending the packets only to the port on the
> workstation is to receive the information. The Linksys hubs only operate
> at Half-Duplex speed and they broad cast a packet to all the nodes on
> the network (the Auto- sensing hubs broadcast the 10Mb packets to the
> port that operate at 10Mb only and broadcast the 100Mb packets to the
> ports that operate at 100Mb only.
But it's important to understand that in a limited sense all 10/100
'hubs' do operate as switches. When link is established on a port, that
port is dynamically assigned to a shared pool of 10Mbit or 100Mbit
ports. There's a switch chip behind the scenes that joins those groups
of ports. And the switching operation will prevent unicast traffic
seen on one group from being forwarded to the other.
If you're using a 10/100 hub and missing traffic that you were expecting
to see, it's more than possible that the source of the traffic is a
10Mbit device, and you're sniffing from a machine with a 100Mbit link.
Breen (who has been bitten by this one more than once.)
--
Breen Mullins
SQA Engineer
Asante Technologies, Inc.
800-622-9686x323
<bmullins@xxxxxxxxxx>