can an access point connect through an access point?

[Neil Cherry]

Tim wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 08:21 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
>> The distinction is fuzzy because there are some expensive devices
>> called 'layer 3 switches' that understand IP addresses and can
>> do some routing and filtering based on them.  However what is
>> normally called a switch works at the network layer 2, using
>> only ethernet MAC addresses.  They learn the hardware addresses
>> of the connected devices as packets are sent from them and once
>> a destination is known they will only forward packets to that
>> destination out the correct port.
> 
> Wouldn't they also have to be co-relating IPs to MAC addresses?  Surely
> they couldn't just work by the MAC, alone?
> 
> For instance if my PC at 192.168.1.1 wants to do something with
> 192.168.1.2, all that goes out on the wire is the IP addresses, hoping
> that something else figures out how to connect the two together, or
> hoping that they're already directly connected together.

Layer 2 switches don't care if the packet is NetBIOS, DECNet, Banyon
Vines, IP or IPX as long the packet is Ethernet. Every done at layer
2 is done with MAC addresses. IP is not involved.

The IP to MAC translations are done at the Layer 3 devices
(routers, PC's TCP/IP stack, etc.).

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
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