cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/12597342

Okay, I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos about switches and I’ve just made myself more confused. Managed versus unmanaged seems to be having a GUI versus not having a GUI, but why would anyone want a GUI on a switch? Shouldn’t your router do that? Also, a switch is like a tube station for local traffic, essentially an extension lead, so why do some have fans?

  • Brownian Motion
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    08 months ago

    I’ve never seen ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) delivered over anything other than a phone line (Cat nothing, and usually RJ11 or RJ12 termination). That is what it was designed for.

    Both a consumer router, and a L3 switch have a routing table in order to decide how each IP packet will be forwarded through the device. For that to work both a L3 switch and a Router support dynamic routing protocols such as OSPF, RIP etc, or statically configured routes.

    The primary use case for a router is WAN connectivity, as I stated. For almost 99% of cases, including failover/redundancy, router connect the WAN network to the beginning of the internal network.

    And yes, routers do operate at the same OSI layer, as I said, L3. If they didn’t they could not have a routing table and decide how traffic is forwarded (remember routers still have multiple LAN ports, whilst unmanaged they still have the ability to decide what goes where.

    • @bigredgiraffe
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      18 months ago

      So phone line when it’s 2 pair UTP is also known as Cat3 and you actually brought up something else interesting, the connector also doesn’t determine what the cable is doing either, you can use an RJ45 connector with cat3 cable and the right pins populated to pass Ethernet (up to 1000FX if I remember right) just as you can use 2 pair of a cat5 cable to replace cat3 cable in a pinch.

      Back to switches though, a L3 switch is called that (or called a multi-layer switch) because it’s performing functions at multiple layers, I’m just trying to make the distinction that a switch and functions involved in switching does not operate at nor use any parts of the L3 protocol stack as switches do not view network traffic in packets but instead operate using and physical addresses and frames. The same physical device may do both but its import to understand that the device is using different components and logic to perform both functions (for example, a switch forwards frames based on the MAC/CAM table), the reason this is important is that it helps understand how things like VLANs work. Also, while I would agree that in the consumer space a router is 99% for a WAN connection that is definitely not true for routers (or even routing) as a whole, there are way more reasons to use a router between two private networks than just between a private network and the internet (which is what I assume you mean by WAN but that is also not always true).

      • Brownian Motion
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        08 months ago

        Firstly Its not cat 3. I’ve never seen that in a telephony installation. Its 4 core flat ribbon or just 4 core. Neither are twisted. Secondly, with 2 “pairs” the best you can do is 100mb/s, as in 10MB/s. Thirdly an L3 Switch DOES use the L3 protocol stack - that is where ROUTING and the routing table happens. OSPF, EIGRP, RIPv2, IS-IS, BGP are all LAYER 3 protocols.

        I think you need to go back to school.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First

        OSPF is a layer 3 protocol. If a layer 2 switch is between the two devices running OSPF, one side may negotiate a speed different from the other side. This can create an asymmetric routing on the link (Router 1 to Router 2 could cost ‘1’ and the return path could cost ‘10’), which may lead to unintended consequences.

        • @mitchconnor
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          08 months ago

          I like how we are arguing over old stuff that basically doesn’t matter. Do you want to also mention token ring for an achtually statement?

          Cat 3 cable can be used in telephony as referenced here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_3_cable but it kind of really doesn’t matter for the original poster does it?

          You are right that switches can operate at L3 if you have an L3 switch. You can also disable it and make it into this lobotomized brick that just forwards packets based on the CAM table. Guess what layer that operates at? Guess what protocols literally don’t matter for forwarding packets that are on the same L2 network?

          @bigredgiraffe is pointing out the distinction between L2 and L3 devices within a network for someone that is learning networking. He is making the clear distinction that NEEDS to be made for someone learning. Not all switches are layer 3, not all switches have layer 3 enabled because they have the feature set, not all networks are created equally.

          Maybe instead of helping this guy learn about the distinction between layers, justifications, etc. you can just tell him every switch is L3, uses an overlay, and runs 3-5 routing protocols all redistributing routes to other overlays.

          • Brownian Motion
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            18 months ago

            I was networking AUI, before you were born, numb nuts.