Re: Layer 2 Trace

[James Eaton-Lee <james.mailing () gmail com>]

On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 11:03 +0000, riftman wrote:
> Hello,
>       I would like to know if it is possible to do like a traceroute
> but on layer 2.
>       I need to see the equipment that is between source and target
> machines.

Layer two only provides connectivity to machines attached to the same
segment. In the case of ethernet, this means the local network segment,
such as a 192.168.0.1/24 class C subnet of 255 hosts - in order to
communicate with hosts on a wide area/extended/inter network (ie. across
more than one local network), traffic needs to be routed (which occurs
at layer three).

You can view the ethernet (MAC) addresses of other machines in the same
layer two ethernet segment as you, but traffic for these hosts is
broadcast to the local network, and as such I don't think there would be
any practical way to ascertain what layer two equipment was in between a
pair of hosts other than by physically looking at it, or
manually/automatically logging into equipment (say, via SNMP) in order
to view MAC/CAM tables and port assignments.

Hope this helps!

 - James.


>       Thanks in advance;
>
> PS: Sorry my English, this is my first post ... be kind
>
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James (njan) Eaton-Lee | 10807960
Semper Monemus Sed Non Audiunt, Ergo Lartus - (Jean-Croix)

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