Re: Tranparent bridge

[Paul Robertson <proberts () patriot net>]

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Paul Robertson wrote:

> A non-transparent bridge will modify the MAC address of the 
> packets as it bridges them between networks, a transparent bridge will 
> forward all the layer 2 traffic unaltered.  The right combination of proxy 
> arp and forwarding might technically make a non-transparent bridge (if 
> you did all the broadcast/multicast stuff too.)  The main advantage would 
> be in having smaller ARP tables at each node.

Just to be complete, if you're not doing proxy ARP, the advantage would be 
in figuring out if a packet came through the bridge.  If a segment had 
multiple bridges in, it would help figure out where a packet came from 
when troubleshooting.  

Paul
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
proberts () patriot net      which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
probertson () trusecure com Director of Risk Assessment TruSecure Corporation

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