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Purpose of Switch Default-Gateway?
mguy
Member Posts: 167 ■■■□□□□□□□
in CCNA & CCENT
Why do we assign a default-gateway to a switch?
From what I understand, when a host wants to send to a remote network, the mac-add of router interface is inputed as destination mac-address.
The switch does not provide any routing for remote networks asides from reading the mac-add and forwaring the packet to the appropriate port based on its' mac-table.
So, why give it a default-gateway? Won't it drop any packets thats not listed anyways.. or will it forward it to the default-gateway-- but again that's the purpose the host put in the mac-add of the router anyways.
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From what I understand, when a host wants to send to a remote network, the mac-add of router interface is inputed as destination mac-address.
The switch does not provide any routing for remote networks asides from reading the mac-add and forwaring the packet to the appropriate port based on its' mac-table.
So, why give it a default-gateway? Won't it drop any packets thats not listed anyways.. or will it forward it to the default-gateway-- but again that's the purpose the host put in the mac-add of the router anyways.
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veritas_libertas
Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
Imagine you want to talk to the switch via another subnet, or from another remote location. If the switch doesn't know it default-gateway (router), it won't be able to respond to your connection request. -
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networker050184
Mod Posts: 11,962 Mod
Like veritas_libertas pointed out, its for the switches connectivity purposes. Just like a server or PC, if it wants to connect to (or be connected to by) remote networks it needs to know where to send traffic.An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made. -
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fsanyee
Member Posts: 171
its for management. if you want to use ssh/telnet or anything to connect to your switch form remote network, you need to configure the dgw. -
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JustFred
Member Posts: 678 ■■■□□□□□□□
Also think using TFTP for upgrade and backing up[h=2]"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." Spock[/h]