Whats the difference between a switch and a hub

My switch on my P2P network has died, a friend says he has a redundant 8
port hub from his office which I can have.
He says he has no info on it though and thinks it may need configuring.

Can I replace my switch with this hub, and do hubs normally need to be
configured, my switch just needed plugging up to work.

Kevin C <kevin.clayton@NO_SPAMntlworld.com> wrote:
> My switch on my P2P network has died, a friend says he has a redundant 8
> port hub from his office which I can have.
> He says he has no info on it though and thinks it may need configuring.
>
> Can I replace my switch with this hub, and do hubs normally need to be
> configured, my switch just needed plugging up to work.
>
>
>
A basic hub is a repeater - that is, it receives packets on one port and
retransmits the packet to all ports, so if more than one packet is en-
route at any time collisions will occur and retries be required.
A switched hub performs routing at a low level - it stores the MAC
address of each attached device and forwards each received packet only to
the relevant port; this allows duplex operation, where packets can be
sent and received at the same time because the switching prevents most
collisions.
As far as I am aware there's no such thing as a managed "dumb" hub,
because there's nothing to manage on it, so it shouldn't require any
configuration. However you will need to reset all your NICs to use half-
duplex if you've been using (full)duplex, and this could result in
slowdown on a busy network.

Kevin C wrote:

> My switch on my P2P network has died, a friend says he has a redundant 8
> port hub from his office which I can have.
> He says he has no info on it though and thinks it may need configuring.
>
> Can I replace my switch with this hub, and do hubs normally need to be
> configured, my switch just needed plugging up to work.
>
>

Dumb hubs don't need to be configured -- not true for managed hubs.
If its redundant its likely to be an old 10baseT unit and if from a
small office/workgroup it lis likely to be unmanaged.

Rob Morley wrote:
> Kevin C <kevin.clayton@NO_SPAMntlworld.com> wrote:
>> My switch on my P2P network has died, a friend says he has a
>> redundant 8 port hub from his office which I can have.
>> He says he has no info on it though and thinks it may need
>> configuring.
>>
>> Can I replace my switch with this hub, and do hubs normally need to
>> be configured, my switch just needed plugging up to work.
>>
>>
>>
> A basic hub is a repeater - that is, it receives packets on one port
> and retransmits the packet to all ports, so if more than one packet
> is en- route at any time collisions will occur and retries be
> required.
> A switched hub performs routing at a low level - it stores the MAC
> address of each attached device and forwards each received packet
> only to the relevant port; this allows duplex operation, where
> packets can be sent and received at the same time because the
> switching prevents most collisions.
> As far as I am aware there's no such thing as a managed "dumb" hub,
> because there's nothing to manage on it, so it shouldn't require any
> configuration.

You can get hubs that can be managed to give them an IP address etc , but
they are rare
--
Alex

"We are now up against live, hostile targets"

"So, if Nick LeLievre should show up with computer parts and a promise
, I expect you to chin the bitch! "

www.drzoidberg.co.uk