Network Devices

The Network Devices are Repeaters, Bridges, Routers, and Gateways.

Network Repeater

A repeater connects two segments of your network cable. It retimes and regenerates the signals to proper

amplitudes and sends them to the other segments. When talking about, ethernet topology, you are probably talking about using a hub as a repeater. Repeaters require a small amount of time to regenerate the signal. This can cause a propagation delay which can affect network communication when there are several repeaters in a row. Many network architectures limit the number of repeaters that can be used in a row. Repeaters work only at the physical layer of the OSI network model.

Bridge

A bridge reads the outermost section of data on the data packet, to tell where the message is going. It reduces the traffic on other network segments, since it does not send all packets. Bridges can be programmed to reject packets from particular networks. Bridging occurs at the data link layer of the OSI

model, which means the bridge cannot read IP addresses, but only the outermost hardware address of the

packet. In our case the bridge can read the ethernet data which gives the hardware address of the destination address, not the IP address. Bridges forward all broadcast messages. Only a special bridge called a translation bridge will allow two networks of different architectures to be connected. Bridges do not normally allow connection of networks with different architectures. The hardware address is also called the MAC (media access control) address. To determine the network segment a MAC address belongs to, bridges use one of:

• Transparent Bridging - They build a table of addresses (bridging table) as they receive packets. If the address is not in the bridging table, the packet is forwarded to all segments other than the one it came from. This type of bridge is used on ethernet networks.

• Source route bridging - The source computer provides path information inside the packet. This is used on Token Ring networks.

Network Router

A router is used to route data packets between two networks. It reads the information in each packet to

tell where it is going. If it is destined for an immediate network it has access to, it will strip the outer packet, readdress the packet to the proper ethernet address, and transmit it on that network. If it is destined for another network and must be sent to another router, it will re-package the outer packet to be received by the next router and send it to the next router. The section on routing explains the theory behind this and how routing tables are used to help determine packet destinations. Routing occurs at the network layer of the OSI model. They can connect networks with different architectures such as Token Ring and Ethernet. Although they can transform information at the data link level, routers cannot transform information from one data format such as TCP/IP to another such as IPX/SPX. Routers do not send broadcast packets or corrupted packets. If the routing table does not indicate the proper address of a packet, the packet is discarded.

Brouter

There is a device called a brouter which will function similar to a bridge for network transport protocols that are not routable, and will function as a router for routable protocols. It functions at the network and data link layers of the OSI network model.

Gateway

A gateway can translate information between different network data formats or network architectures. It can translate TCP/IP to AppleTalk so computers supporting TCP/IP can communicate with Apple brand computers. Most gateways operate at the application layer, but can operate at the network or session layer of the OSI model. Gateways will start at the lower level and strip information until it gets to the required level and repackage the information and work its way back toward the hardware layer of the OSI model. To confuse issues, when talking about a router that is used to interface to another network, the word gateway is often used. This does not mean the routing machine is a gateway as defined here, although it could be.

Network Hardware Connections

Ethernet uses star topology for the physical wiring layout. A diagram of a typical ethernet network layout is
shown below.

On a network, a hub is basically a repeater which is used to re-time and amplify the network signals. In this
diagram, please examine the hubs closely. On the left are 4 ports close to each other with an x above or below them. This means that these ports are crossover ports. This crossover is similar to the arrangement that was used for serial cables between two computers. Each serial port has a transmitter and receiver. Unless there was a null modem connection between two serial ports, or the cable was wired to cross transmit to receive and vice versa, the connection would not work. This is because the transmit port would be sending to the transmit port on the other side.

Therefore note that you cannot connect two computers together with a straight network jumper cable between their network cards. You must use a special crossover cable that you can buy at most computer stores and some office supply stores for around 10 dollars. Otherwise, you must use a hub as shown here.

The hub on the upper left is full, but it has an uplink port on the right which lets it connect to another hub. The
uplink does not have a crossover connection and is designed to fit into a crossover connection on the next hub. This way you can keep linking hubs to put computers on a network. Because each hub introduces some delay onto the network signals, there is a limit to the number of hubs you can sequentially link. Also the computers that are connected to the two hubs are on the same network and can talk to each other. All network traffic including all broadcasts is passed through the hubs.

In the diagram, machine G has two network cards, eth0 and eth1. The cards eth1 and eth0 are on two different networks or subnetworks. Unless machine G is programmed as a router or bridge, traffic will not pass between the two networks. This means that machines X and Z cannot talk to machines A through F and vice versa. Machine X can talk to Z and G, and machines A though F can talk to each other and they can talk to machine G. All machines can talk to machine G. Therefore the machines are dependent on machine G to talk between the two networks or subnets.

Each network card, called a network interface card (NIC) has a built in hardware address programmed by its manufacturer. This is a 48 bit address and should be unique for each card. This address is called a media access control (MAC) address. The media, in our specific case will be the ethernet. Therefore when you refer to ethernet, you are referring to the type of network card, the cabling, the hubs, and the data packets beingsent. You are talking about the hardware that makes it work, along with the data that is physically sent on the wires.

There are three types of networks that are commonly heard about. They are ethernet, token-ring, and ARCnet. Each one is described briefly here, although this document is mainly about ethernet.

Ethernet:

The network interface cards share a common cable. This cable structure does not need to form a structure, but must be essentially common to all cards on the network. Before a card transmits, it listens for a break in traffic. The cards have collision detection, and if the card detects a collision while trying to transmit, it will retry after some random time interval.

Token Ring:

Token ring networks form a complete electrical loop, or ring. Around the ring are computers, called stations. The cards, using their built in serial numbers, negotiate to determine what card will be the master interface card. This card will create what is called a token, that will allow other cards to send data. Essentially, when a card with data to send, receives a token, it sends its data to the next station up the ring to be relayed. The master interface will then create a new token and the process begins again.

ARCnet:

ARCnet networks designate a master card. The master card keeps a table of active cards, polling each one
sequentially with transmit permission.