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Questions tagged [switch]

a device that bridges network segments, operating at the OSI link layer level.

Switches (in the context of this site) are devices with multiple network ports, which allow interaction between all devices connected to these ports.

Basic switches operate at the data link layer level (in TCP/IP networks) and forward packets based on the link layer address in the packet headers. They are different to hubs in the way that hubs generally broadcast incoming packets to all other ports, whereas switches keep tables of link layer addresses they have seen at specific ports and only forward packets to the relevant ports. Basic switches are also known as layer 2 devices.

Higher grade switches can include functionality at higher layers of the OSI stack. This can range from IGMP snooping (for multicast support) and VLANs through to NAT, VPN, firewalls or even application layer functionality (web caching or proxying). Such switches are known as multilayer devices.

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Cisco Dot1x Port Authentication - VLAN selected based on what domain the user logs on to on computer?

Currently my company has been bought out by another. Due to this, another two companies users will be migrating into our office. It would be super handy if we could have the vlan chosen for the user based on what domain they try to login to using…
Lance
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Why do I need to assign static ip address to the bridge and not to the physical interface?

I have bond0 with two physical interfaces in it. Normally I used to assign static IP address to this bond0 to set up internet connectivity on the server. Now, because of LXC virtual guests, I had to create a bridge br0 and put bond0 and virt0…
k3a
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Modular Switch: swapping modules

This weekend I'm planning to (at long last) take a bunch of a equipment off of a hand-made (2x4s and plywood) bench and mount it all in a proper rack. One of the items to move is an HP 5406zl modular switch with two modules, shown below: It's…
Joel Coel
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New office cabling: should we use CAT7 or CAT6a?

We are going to do the cabling in our new office building and we are thinking to lay down 10Gbit cables since we use HP switches that come with 10Gbit ethernet ports. We will also lay down few fiber optic cables, just in case :). What we are…
I don't know.
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What kind of cable is this?

I need to cost out some switching and figure out how to network a PC to this type of network. Clarifying: This is to connect units in a high rise facility. Each unit has the top picture in a closet. In every other floor in the hallway the cables…
ethrbunny
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Fault Tolerance with 2 HP ProCurve 2824 Switches

Looking for some advice on our current situation. We have a full rack at a data center that contains 1 uplink to the data center distribution layer switch (we don't control this), 2 HP ProCurve 2824's and a handful of servers (I'll leave it at that…
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Mixing SFP's with different speeds

I need to install new SFP's in a location; however, I need them to connect to existing switches and I'm not sure what SFP type they are. All I know is I've got MM Fiber. If I installed Cisco GLC-SX-MM 1000Base SFP's, would that cause an issue if…
Ryan
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Phantom NIC issue causing eth0/1 to drop out

We are experiencing a very strange and frustrating problem. Our company has servers here in Massachusetts, as well as in California. The issues we are seeing are only on the CA hardware. Out in CA, we have several hundred Dell R300 and Dell R310…
Brendon Martino
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How do I test the increased bandwidth after setting up LACP?

I have setup LACP, and LAG on our Netgear Switches (GS724T). I have bound(?) two ports together to create one 2Gbps connection between two of the switches. I was wondering if there is a way of testing the increased bandwidth? I know it's setup…
dannymcc
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If fiber runs 1gig fine, are there any concerns when considering upgrading to 10gig transceivers?

We had fiber installed (connecting ~10 buildings) around 5 years ago and it has been working great. The initial setup involved Procurve 2848 and 2824 switches w/ 1gig transceivers. However, lately we have been considering upgrading our network both…
Eric
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Will 100 Mbps client slow down 1000 Mbps network?

Newbie question: We are planning to setup a LAN in our lab, and are looking at gigabit ethernet switches. A couple of our older computers have 100 Mbps ethernet, will they slow down the whole network when all other devices are 1000 Mbps? If so, what…
hpy
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Hubs/switches taking out switches?

Here's the issue...we have a network with a lot of Cisco switches. Someone plugged in a hub on the network, and then we started seeing "weird" behavior; errors in communication between clients and servers, or network timeouts, dropping network…
Bart Silverstrim
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Looking for a small, portable, port-mirroring ethernet switch

I recently had a mac go haywire, taking half a minute or more to get www.google.com loaded. Getting its owner to give up the machine for repair was like pulling teeth - they were insisting that it must be something to do with the network, since so…
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Optimal performance settings for Spanning Tree Protocol (802.1d) for LAN (gaming) environment

The topic covers a few topics, so I would try to break this down further as means to provide more information as well as gain a better understanding about the technology. First some background - we are running a local LAN Party with a lot of…
Ivan Peevski
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Anyone have any experiences with SuperMicro Layer 3 Switches (SSE-G48-TG4 in particular)

We use a lot of SuperMicro gear, and we just noticed that SuperMicro now has a Layer 3 managed switch. I am interested in using it in a top of the rack application. As with most of SuperMicro stuff, the price is right. I can't seem to find anyone…
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