scott wrote:
>> No, but the fact that it's looking at (and changing) IP headers does.
> 
> Don't think my switch changes any IP headers, it just either routes them 
> somewhere or doesn't based on a set of rules.
> 
> I thought a switch just dealt with stuff in one network address space, 
> eg you use it to simply provide enough sockets for everyone to connect 
> into something else, and it just send unmodified packets to the right 
> place.  A router however connects two different networks together, and 
> has things like port forwarding, NAT, modifying the IP headers etc.
> 
> Or maybe I'm completely off track as I'm no expert, that's just based on 
> my experience with working with things labelled as "routers" and 
> "switches".

The idea is that a hub just forwards everything, whereas a switch looks 
at the Ethernet headers and attempts to make an intelligent choice about 
which way to forward [defaulting back to forwarding everywhere if it 
doesn't know which way is the correct way].

The device I'm looking at is routing traffic between different IP 
networks, which requires looking not only at Ethernet headers but IP 
headers as well. That's a seperate level of complexity.

>> Besides, the fact remains: We don't need this.
> 
> Didn't this come up before when you told us about this?  I'm sure 
> everyone explained to you some of the benefits of the more pricey 
> switches.  Was your post just because you were surprised how 
> configurable a switch can be?

Well, you said "my device can do X, Y and Z". I was just noting that we 
don't need to be able to do any of those things. That's all.

All we need is a device to connect some nodes together...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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