Geek question

[ciphergoth]

About network switches. Can you join two cheapo (Dabs Value) 100BASE-T switches with a crossover cable?

One friend argues "no" on the grounds that before any switch will send a packet to the other, it would have to know of an address at the other end, but neither switch will know of any addresses on the other switch until some packets have been exchanged. (Is that right?) This makes sense, but it occurs to me that if switches broadcast any packets they don't know how to route then all will be well. I don't know if they do though.

I also have no idea what to do if I can't connect them this way! Possibly buy another PCMCIA Ethernet card for the laptop that's also the gateway, but they are costly.

Advice gratefully received...

Comments

[hughe.livejournal.com]

yes.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

a fuller answer would be:

as far as switch1 is concerned, switch2 /is/ all the mac addresses connected to it.

there might be greater confusion if they are expensive managed switches (web/telnet interfaces etc), but i've been using daisychained cheapos for ever :)

(i use the dlink 1024/1016 series, just bog standard unmanaged switches)

[mr-purpleduck.livejournal.com]

there might be greater confusion if they are expensive managed switches

This is only really an issue if the switch limits each port to having a single MAC/IP address pair. I know that the Cisco switches do have this option.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

yeh the only managed switches i've used were cisco catalyst 2940 switches, but even they dont have that option enabled out of the box.