[NCLUG] how to 'ping' a MAC address ?

Jake Edge jake at edge2.net
Sun Jul 14 21:54:49 MDT 2002


On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 02:22:47PM -0600, Marcio Luis Teixeira wrote:
> Pardon my igorance, but I'm confused now. I thought that MAC addressing only 
> applied within a local segment of ethernet and would not be routed. So how 
> would such activity even show up at the switch? Am I confusing a router with 
> a switch? Is there a difference?

A switch, like a hub, is a level 2 (MAC) layer device.  Switches, unlike
hubs, choose which segment to send down based on the MAC address of the
destination.  Routers are level 3 (network) layer devices and make their
decisions based on IP addresses.  So, the switch should show activity 
bound for a given MAC address if that address is on that segment.

jake

-- 
Jake Edge - Stellar Software Consulting, LLC - www.stellarsc.com
jake at edge2.net - jake at stellarsc.com



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