Retro networking / WAN communities

[Grant Taylor]

On 4/12/22 12:08 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> Hub is a nebulous term.

Yes and no.

Hub can be a generic "connects things" a la. hub of wires.  Or it can be 
a technical thing, e.g. layer 1 device.

> For example, I've got a couple of NS "Datamover" 10Base boxes that 
> take the WAN connection via 10base2 and distribute it via 10BaseT; 
> absolutely dumb boxes without any intelligence at all.

I believe there has to be some amount of intelligence, thus not 
absolutely dumb, in that it's connecting a WAN (quintessentially not 
Ethernet) with a disparate networking technology, Ethernet.  The 
differences between the two require /some/ amount of intelligence.

> I also have some Farallon 100baseT boxes that appear to provide 
> filtering and logon for WAN connections.

That screams something more complex than a switch, much less hub, to me. 
  In my opinion, it strongly shouts "router".

> Of course, many hubs include NAT, port moderation, etc.

Nope.

Network Address Translation operates on the 3rd OSI layer, specifically 
Network Addresses.  L2 switches (operating on source / destination MAC 
addresses) and L1 hubs don't understand, much less, alter the L3 network 
address.

There are many people that use "hub" in an extremely generic sense of 
the word as something that connects things together.  But is is 
absolutely not a technical term for what is being done.

> Personally, I don't care, so long as the things work.

Details matter.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die