nanog mailing list archives

Re: Hardware capture platforms


From: Warren Kumari <warren () kumari net>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:04:20 -0400


On Jul 31, 2008, at 12:31 PM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 02:47:11PM -0400, Jon Kibler wrote:
Hubs are still available that are REAL hubs. I got 4 netgears about a
year ago and they are still available.

However, there is a problem with your specification: No hub (that I am
aware of) can do 1Gbps. All hubs are 10/100 AFAIK.

Ok, so I guess what I am speaking is not strictly a hub, it is a non- learning bridge (single collision domain per port, full duplex, etc). There used to be a bunch of devices sold like this -- there were a few really cheap chipsets (AFAIR, Vitesse SparX VSCsomething was one of them -- basically a standard switch chipset that they shaved a few cents off because there was no learning logic / memory) that many people used in cheap "hubs"... I still have some of these somewhere and will rip the lid off to figure out exactly what it was so I can get some more...



And, note carefully: some "dual-speed hubs" are actually a 10BT hub and
a 100BT hub *with a switch between them*.  I forget which brand I
caught this on, but it bit me a couple of years back.

Which speed cable you plug in determines which hub you're talking to.

I see your weird hub story and raise you one:

I went along to one of my wife's clients to help lug a printer up the stairs... We get it on the desk and I go to plug in the Ethernet port -- I follow some cables and find this small white switch jammed behind a photocopier -- I pull it out and it has, emblazoned in large red letters on the front, "10/100 Hub with Switch" -- this was back in the day when switches were still cool... I turn it around, and on the back there is... a switch, one side is marked "10M" and the other is marked "100M"... After I stopped laughing I tested it, and sure enough, its a standard hub, and you can make the ports either run at 10Mbps or 100Mbps by flipping the switch... I *really* wish I had replaced and kept it...

W


Yes, it's weird.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra () baylink com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http:// baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

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