On 4/12/22 12:08 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Hub is a nebulous term.
Yes and no.
Hub can be a generic "connects things" a la. hub of wires. Or it can be
a technical thing, e.g. layer 1 device.
For example, I've got a couple of NS "Datamover" 10Base boxes that
take the WAN connection via 10base2 and distribute it via 10BaseT;
absolutely dumb boxes without any intelligence at all.
I believe there has to be some amount of intelligence, thus not
absolutely dumb, in that it's connecting a WAN (quintessentially not
Ethernet) with a disparate networking technology, Ethernet. The
differences between the two require /some/ amount of intelligence.
I also have some Farallon 100baseT boxes that appear to provide
filtering and logon for WAN connections.
That screams something more complex than a switch, much less hub, to me.
In my opinion, it strongly shouts "router".
Of course, many hubs include NAT, port moderation, etc.
Nope.
Network Address Translation operates on the 3rd OSI layer, specifically
Network Addresses. L2 switches (operating on source / destination MAC
addresses) and L1 hubs don't understand, much less, alter the L3 network
address.
There are many people that use "hub" in an extremely generic sense of
the word as something that connects things together. But is is
absolutely not a technical term for what is being done.
Personally, I don't care, so long as the things work.
Details matter.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
