no confusion, all was well put
thanks
bascule
Greg Stewart wrote:
>
> Bascule,
>
> In his diagram, Dennis indicates that the two workstations are DHCP clients.
> Since he is on a private network, behind a firewall, and does not include a
> separate server for the DHCP provider service, the firewall itself could
> very well be the DHCP server--although he may have another server on his
> network doing the job.
>
> A firewall, can be simply that, a firewall, and nothing else. Or, it can be
> several things at the same time... in this case, possibly a DHCP server. It
> can also be a router...but not necessarily so.
>
> As a firewall that "masquerades" an internal, private network, it is doing
> some routing tasks, but not all. So, it is "sort of" a router, but not
> really. A true router will separate segments of a network by the subnet
> mask, and isolate network traffic that does not belong on the other
> segments, keeping the different segments nice and "quiet".
>
> A router can also act as a DHCP server if it is set up to do so. And, to
> complicate things even further, a router can also be a firewall. And, in
> fact, a router can be a DHCP serving, firewalling, packet-forwarding, DNS
> serer if you really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y, wanted it to be. But that's giving
> the poor machine a bit of work to do all at the same time, and if you're on
> a large internal network, it's not considered "good practice".
>
> Does that clear things up a bit? Or, have I successfully confused the issue
> beyond repair? :-)
>
> --Greg
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "bascule" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > could i jump in and ask a couple of questions that might help me
> > understand your diagram? i can't help you i'm afraid but i think i might
>
