Paul Johnson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 11:43:40AM -0500, Keith G. Murphy wrote: > >>I take minor issue with this blanket statement: a switch doesn't really >>gain you anything unless you're getting enough traffic for collisions, >>and takes away your ability to monitor everything (tcpdump, ethereal) >>that's going on from one point, given that you have two or more other >>computers having conversations of interest. >> >>Please correct me if I'm wrong. > > > Switch also buys you full-duplex Ethernet.
That's a really good point.
> You get far better performance for about the same > price with a switch. Why anybody would use a hub if they can at all > avoid it in this day and age is beyond me. > > Packet sniffing tools are best suited for running on the same segment > as a router, or the router itself, anyway.
Mmmm, what if I have two machines that are on the same LAN segment, having a conversation of interest, but I want to run my sniffer from, say, a Linux server on the same segment? (Router shouldn't even come into play in a situation like that).
Don't get me wrong: I agree with your larger point. In almost every situation, I'd probably take a switch over a hub as well. At the prices of even a few years ago, things were different.
This was an interesting discussion I saw: http://www.ccontrols.com/pdf/Issue%209.pdf
They introduce the issue of latency, which I had thought might be an issue with switches as well, but wasn't expert enough to address. The relevance of that issue would probably be very application-dependent.
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