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what is networking (kinda)?

M

munki

Member
obviously, im not hoping to get all my answers in this forums (tho i dont doubt i could). i'd just rather know somewhere to get some enlightened reading done. ive recently become a technolust and have read everthing i can get my hands on about pc's and the such. but one area of computers that still baffles me is networking. what exactly does a router do? and what are the differences between a hub, switch, bridge, etc.

i want to know all the steps i would need to create a small lan (in hopes of better understanding what a lan is and whats required for different sizes). do i need anything more than comps with nic's and a hub? i do need a hub, right? could i do it just with some comps with nic's and a switch? something to explain the heirarchy of a network would be nice.

lan = local area network. wan = what? world area network??


basically im sick of reading stuff like anandtech's article on phoneline networking and just feeling kind of lost. the more info on the make up on networks, etc, the better. GIMMY, lol

tia
 
to quote keaneau reeves, "...whoa"


....so, the internet is actually a huge physical forest of underground fiber optic cables and im guessing other kinds of cables and im sure satellites play into something somewhere. this is huge...

[still reading]
 
almost done with the linksys.com/edu thing (i think. im up to vpn and wireless security). thnx tons to hanpan. its exactly what i was looking for. and from the looks of jackmds's post, ill have what i wanted to know to add on to it, too.

awesome
😀

edit: one more question: whats the difference between a managed and unmanaged hub/switch? what type of things would each be better suited for?
 
not 100% sure, but an unmananged switch would be one that you just plug the power in, plug the cat5 in and go.. no bells and whistles, but on a managed one there is usually either a http interface allowing you to configure things like VPN, etc. through your browser, or a dedicated console (serial) port like a cisco switch allowing you to access a console to setup various things on individual switch ports, disable/enable certain ports, vpn, vlan (at least on cisco catalyst's) etc.
 
Sure is cool seeing the light come on over somebody's head.

Spidey, you crack me up man.

Yeah, one of the biggest differences in managed vs unmanaged switches and hubs are the Price. Managed=money. Managed Switches take on some of the properties that you get with routers. VLAN's, VPN's, ACL's (access control lists), etc. If you expect it to do more then expect to pay more. About all of the switches we talk about here in the forums are the unmanaged kind.
 
sweet!! yeah, and i love the light on above my head more than anybody, lol
finally, man. this stuff puzzled me too long, and i decided "dammit, i could know this"
thanks for the info, everybody

anyway, thats friggin great news on the unmanaged thing. i was afraid it meant non-dedicated bandwidth or something and was about to get pissed. and i found a 8port 10/100 switch for $31 on pricewatch. does that sound so low that i should be concerned? because i had always thought this stuff would be major expensive. but if thats the case, i could prolly spend about 2 weeks and be able to buy an entire lan party setup!
 
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