Hubs,Switches,Routers

kinggeorge1987

I'm a little confused here guys and gals. I remember back years ago before I had a clue about networking accidentally purchasing a switch instead of a hub. When I got the switch home I connected my cable modem to it, then ran cat5 to my desktops, and only one had internet. So I called cisco and they told me that I needed a hub or router to provide internet to both PCS. Well in essence my question is:

If a hub works in a logical bus topology, sending the signal/packet to each workstation searching until it reaches the one with the assigned physical address, and a switch 'remembers' which physical addresses are in which port so it clears up network traffic and only sends it to the assigned pcs. Couldn't the switch have been configured to allow internet access to both pcs ?

Secondly, in a large scale network, like the ones I'm sure most of you run. What is the physical layout of the network ? Does your internet connection hook into a router, and multiple switches with multiple workstations connected to each are connected to the router - then the switches are configured to allow the internet to travel to each port on the switch ?

j938

kinggeorge1987 wrote: »

I'm a little confused here guys and gals. I remember back years ago before I had a clue about networking accidentally purchasing a switch instead of a hub. When I got the switch home I connected my cable modem to it, then ran cat5 to my desktops, and only one had internet. So I called cisco and they told me that I needed a hub or router to provide internet to both PCS. Well in essence my question is:

If a hub works in a logical bus topology, sending the signal/packet to each workstation searching until it reaches the one with the assigned physical address, and a switch 'remembers' which physical addresses are in which port so it clears up network traffic and only sends it to the assigned pcs. Couldn't the switch have been configured to allow internet access to both pcs ?

Secondly, in a large scale network, like the ones I'm sure most of you run. What is the physical layout of the network ? Does your internet connection hook into a router, and multiple switches with multiple workstations connected to each are connected to the router - then the switches are configured to allow the internet to travel to each port on the switch ?

Depending how far back years ago your referring to I remember when some ISP companies use to bind the MAC address to whatever node was connected to their modem so only that computer will be able to connect. If this was not the case and if your modem was just passing through traffic your switch should of worked as long as it did NAT which im sure it should of however if this was years ago you have to be careful sometimes before it may say switch on the box but just be a HUB.

Usually is office network you will have T1 , cable modem, or whatever ISP connection your using connected to a router/firewall device and then that device connecting to a switch and everything patch to the workstations from the switch

Hope this explaination was straight to the point what you was looking for

kinggeorge1987

Yup, I get it. The router/firewall connects the sepearte LANS, which have workstations connected by switches, to the servers, or modem. Depending on what kind of network you have.