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

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Finally found the spec online as a PDF. Unfortunately I can only read the first page because the second page contains Traditional Chinese characters that acroread barfs on, but it says that all ports are MDI/X so I didn't need to get a crossover cable. I slightly wish I'd realised that before I got it but my network access has been erratic :-)

Anyway, the network is now completely working, so I'm happy. And I have discovered that all my remaining spare cables in the flat are somewhat fucked, so off to get more cables I go...