?? about routers and DSL

[Soccerman]

guys I know almost exactly HOW switches, routers, and hubs work. I just don't like how they name home networking devices routers, switches, etc. they DO have SOME of the features found in fully blown routers, or swtches, but definetly not all (which is why they don't cost an arm and a leg).

I'm guessing that the router portion of a normal home network device is mostly for the outside, and for allowing a computer on the inside of the network (invisible to the internet in this case) to be able to talk on the net, even though it doesn't officiall exist on the internet..

with "switches" though, I personally don't fully understand the point of them on home networking devices, because they're almost as usefull as hubs! unless you have more then 30 computers at home, they ARE as useless as hubs.

 

[Sohcan]

Actually, my Netgear RT311 is called a Gateway/Router, if that helps at all.

Switches are very useful for network gaming...refer to my previous post, where the switch eliminated the extreme lag we were getting with 7 computers in Diablo II when using a hub. The price difference between a 10/100 hub and a switch is getting so small that it's definitely worth it.

Obviously, the DSL/cable routers don't have nearly all of the features of a high-end Cisco router, since they serve a very specific purpose, but what's your gripe with switches? Apart from the fact that they're not stackable/rack-mounted, AFAIK a home office switch has all of the features/performance of the more expensive variants. I definitely have noticed a performance increase from moving to a switch from a hub.

 

[Paladinexe]

One additional question please: When using a gateway/router with built in switch and multiple ports, will it also function as a switch/hub for LAN? Example: Will the Netgear RT314 allow file sharing, printer sharing and gaming via LAN? Or is a hub/switch still required for off-line processes? Hmmm. This almost appears as 3 questions.

 

[Soccerman]

"Switches are very useful for network gaming...refer to my previous post, where the switch eliminated the extreme lag we were getting with 7 computers in Diablo II when using a hub."

that's only becuase Diablo 7 is one of the worst games when it comes to network bandwidth required during multiplayer games. when you are running out of bandwidth, the YEAH, you'll want a switch. but really, you'll almost NEVER run out of bandwidth with just a hub and a 100mbps full duplex connection..

 

[Sohcan]

...but I've run into similar situations with Unreal Tournament and Vampire: The Masquerade. Consider it insurance for future poorly-coded network games. Sure, the average computer user has no use for a switch, but most people here don't constitute as the average computer user. It definitely can't hurt to have a switch instead of a hub, and the price difference isn't too extreme ($90 vs. $125 USD for 8-port 10/100 hub vs. 10/100 switch).

 

[dszd0g]

As far as the difference between low end and high end switches, there are differences. For a lot of network equipment there are two versions a monitored and unmonitored version. For a home LAN having a monitored switch is probably pointless. However, on a corporate LAN you really want to use monitored network equipment if you need to trace down the source of a networking issue.

I agree with Sohcan. There is a big difference for a lot of games when using a switch over a hub. Yes, a high end Cisco router is going to have a lot more features than a cheap home router. However, I believe the Netgear RT31x has some firewalling features that are not found in anything other than the Cisco PIX. I think the home routers server their purpose, they have the features they need and not more. Do you really need features you will never use? I realize there are features that would be nice that they don't have. However, for the price difference what do you expect? They have entirely different markets. If you could buy a Netgear RT311 and use it for one of your corporate backbone routers you think you would want to pay for a Cisco BFR (Big F* Router )

Soccerman:

Sorry, I just don't agree with ANYTHING you said. (Edit: You are of course welcome to your opinion. I really do not intend this to be rude. I just don't agree with you.)

Switches are a lot better than hubs. A nice benchmark was done by Anandtech: Network Switch Roundup - Results. Just try and do a file transfer between two machines on a hub and then network gaming on the rest and tell me that you don't notice. Switches are great in that unless you overload the backplane of the switch a machine can not overload more than its own connection and the machine its sending to with unicast packets assuming all machines are running at the same speed. Obviously one machine running at 100Mbit could overload a few 10Mbit ports.

Switches are great for TCP/IP based games that use a server and unicast packets. Running a switch on an IPX network is a waste since IPX is a broadcast based protocol and on an IPX network a switch basically behaves as a hub.



<< but really, you'll almost NEVER run out of bandwidth with just a hub and a 100mbps full duplex connection.. >>



That is really interesting. Would you mind pointing me to a hub that does full duplex?

Proof:

(These are only partial definitions... please don't make me come up with a full on definition.)

Def - Hub: A device that broadcasts all packets sent in to all ports.

Def - Full duplex: machine A can send a packet to machine B at the same time as machine B sends a packet to machine A.

Follow?

Now what happens theoretically on a hub if machine A sent a packet at the exact same time as machine B. Both packets would be sent to all the other ports at the exact same time. Therefore, collision.

Sorry, a full duplex hub is not possible.

I also repeat, its name is defined by how much of the packet it opens up or in other words how many layers of the OSI model it looks at. It doesn't matter how many features it has as long as it falls under the definition.

Paladinexe:

A router/switch performs the functions of both. You can do all the things you could normally do with a switch on the LAN.

 

[Paladinexe]

Thank you, dszd0g. Great answer and great news for me. I have a Netgear 10M/4 Port hub and wanted to upgrade in order to be able to network 5 or more machines. The next purchase I make will also answer the issue of connection sharing as well. &quot;Oh, what a wonderful world.&quot;:Louis Armstrong.

 

[Soccerman]

hmm. oopps! I didn't think about Full duplex not being possible on hubs (only possible on Switches and routers). it WOULD be possible if each card had a DIRECT connection without the hub propogating the signal to all ports (ie not a hub, but a direct connection).

ok so I'm wrong there, however, I am correct in &quot;assuming&quot; that games normally don't require a fraction of network bandwidth (unless you either tweak them to make the most use of your bandwidth, OR you have a game that just sucks bandwidth like mad).

at my school, we have 16 computers on a hub that is connected via vertical cabling (vertical being only a term that means it's a backbone cable) and we all surf through one pipe (T1 I believe). the network is running fast ethernet (not full duplex of course), and we haven't had problems at all when it comes to collisions, or clogging the network. I'm sure we can fill that pipe up easily, with the tools we have at hand.

consider, that last semester, we had realplayer movies with over 150kbps bitrates. all of these movies were stored on a server with our Cisco curriculum. with more then 3 people running movies at once, (PLUS curriculum, AND internet webpages being loaded) and a good look at our network inspector software, I KNOW that usage barely hit 5 mbs.

ok, want another example? we were just downloading ghost images from the server to the same computers, and we COULD get more then 2 going at once, however it DID slow down somewhat. when you think about it, it's possible we were hitting the speed limit of either the hard drives on the server, or the limit of the network, but these images didn't take too long to load (I think about 5 minutes? they were about 500megs each).

ALSO, we were pinging a guy like mad last year, becuase he was downloading videos etc off the internet (he's not supposed to in othe words), so we EACH had 20 ping windows open, each sending the max amount of data u can send in a ping (I don't remember what that max is), and were all sending them right at him.

needless to say, he was having some problems doing much, becuase his NIC was having problems keeping up (it has to respond u know). however that we had alot of people still running the curriculum at the same time. it didn't bother them, even though the pings were going through at the same time. I would think we would hit the max of that connection, HOWEVER, when taking another look at the network inspector software, we were only hitting around 3MB a second.

now, I just found out hot to use Hyperterminal to talk and send files to friends on the network (haven't tested other parts of the network, which are on different ports of the switch of course). I'm going to test sending files through there (MP3's for example), and I bet I won't hit the ceiling. I'll be close, if more poeple do the same thing at the same time, but that isn't too likely to happen.

now, can you tell me why a switch might be faster in that situation? becuase with games, you're not sending alot of data overall, but you've got ALOT of computer sending large amounts of small packets. each packet has it's own destination (normally the server of the game), and with a shared connection such as a hub, you WILL have problems, becuase each computer will have problems accessing the media with all these small packets floating around to and from the server.

with a switch, you have each connection competing for bandwidth with the server, however each one only sees data thats coming from the server, and doesn't see data that comes from the other computers. if the server is on a 100mbps conection with Full duplex all the better, because it can move the data faster then a hub. the data from your computer goes to the switch, which then puts it in the buffer for the server port to be sent after packets of higher priority, or packets that have been sent earlier, are sent.

so sure, you might still have packetloss (if the server port cannot keep up with the massive amount of small packets being sent by other computers and the packets that return to those computers), but it will be relieved somewhat, especially if you run Full duplex.

do you argue with me NOW? as you can see, I was holding back on those other posts.

 

[Banshee Mullet]

Let me throw this question in here.

I have a Netopia R7100c SDSL router laying around from one of my offices that we don't use anymore. Is it possible to use this thing with my ADSL connection at the house or are they incompatible?

 

[dszd0g]

Syntax: I use MB for Megabyte, Mb for Megabit, KB for Kilobyte, and Kb for kilobit.

Soccerman, the network you describe sounds like the machines are two slow to keep up with the network. However, that doesn't make sense to me since anything past a P90 should be able to saturate even a 100Mb connection.

You will get collisions on a hub, period. Under 5% is considered acceptable. Higher than that and your network is saturated and you will probably notice.

Most games do not saturate the network, some games will use as much network bandwidth as there is. A file transfer (like FTP) will use as much bandwidth as it can get. One person FTPing on a hub to another machine on the hub will saturate the network assuming both machines can keep up with the network traffic (A modern machine can). If you do an FTP between two machines on a hub and network game, you will notice if the game requires serious network usage.

As far as the ping example, it depends on whether you were doing a ping flood or not. A ping flood sends packets out as fast as possible. ping -f under some Unices. HP-UX is ping -T 1 -W 0 or something like that, but it doesn't do a real ping flood. There is a Windows program called AnySpeed that will test the network performance by ping flooding. On a 10Mb network the fastest I've hit with AnySpeed is 980KB/sec which is 7.8Mb which is real close to the 8Mb max you will generally ever hit on a 10Mb network. That was on a switch. I can guarentee you if you run AnySpeed between two machines on that hub and then try and network game (again, assuming the game requires a decent amount of network traffic) you will notice since it will be saturating the entire network. On a switch you would not have this problem. If your MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) on your network is the default Ethernet 1500 bytes and a normal ping sends one packet every second that is 30KB/sec which is .24Mb/sec and not even close to saturating the network or his network card. Unless his machine is real weak it should have no problem with this whatsoever.

3 people watching 150Kb movies is 450Kb/sec or .45Mb/sec, again not saturating the network at all. I would have to know how fast the web transfers and other network traffic was to tell. However, your 5Mb estimate sounds reasonable. I would not expect this type of activity to saturate a hub. If this is all you do than a hub may be sufficient. However, as soon as you do a file transfer between two machines on the same network that will saturate the network.

You appear to notice file transfers from the server, that is most likely because you are saturating the network. If you had a gigabit connection to the server and 100Mb to each machine on a switch, you would not have the bottleneck of the servers connection unless it was servering 10 or more machines at the same time and each machine would get 100Mb.

I think the rest of your message did a good job of explaining the advantages of a switch.

I don't have anything to argue with that message. I think I explained each of the situations above. You only run into problems on a hub if it is saturated or close to saturated. The Anandtech benchmarks even show the unloaded performance to be very close between a hub and a switch.

Banshee Mullet, sorry SDSL and ADSL are not compatible.

 

[dszd0g]

Paladinexe: The Netgear RT314 only has 4 ports. So you can only have 4 machines hooked directly to it. However, you could connect your current hub to the RT314 for 6 usable connections (obviously, the 3 on your current hub would share a 10Mb connection to the RT314)

The RT314 to the best of my knowledge does not have an uplink port. If your current hub has an uplink port (or button to make one an uplink port) you could use a patch cable and the uplink port to hook it to any of the ports on the RT314. If your hub does not have an uplink port you would need to use a cross-over cable between the hub and the RT314.

 

[Paladinexe]

Again thank you. My hub (Netgear EN104) does have an uplink. Using the RT314 is it possible to play online games with multiple computers simultaneously?

 

[dszd0g]

It depends on how the game is written. Some games will work running on a NAT network, others will not and require an addressable IP per machine using it. There are some tricks you can do. Some games will not work even for one machine at a time behind a NAT. As more and more people are behind such networks games that do not support it will slowly disappear (At least I hope.)

I used to run a NAT'd network, but I switched to both NAT and real IPs since I wanted to play on battle.net and battle.net did not support NAT at the time. Now battle.net is NAT friendly supposedly (as long as it lets port 6112 through). Starcraft and Diablo I were patched to support it. I have not personally tried it, but their FAQ says so and I have heard others say it works fine.

In other words you may wish to check to see if the current games you play support it. Any decent future games should support it.

 

[cape123]

I am also a newbie to networking and am trying to share 3 computers' resources and a DSL connection.

I am still trying to decide between getting one of those Linksys routers with a switch built in or just getting a switch and networking via win98 SE.

Can anyone lead me in the right direction?

I currently use Verizon as my DSL provider and have a dynamic IP address ( I think) and want to have the smoothest install possible

If I go with the router can I avoid buying 4 NIC's? The reason I ask is because I've heard horror stories about trying to install 2 NIC's on one computer.

 

[Soccerman]

ahh.. I've got more info for u.. Full Duplex Hubs ARE possible. there's nothing impossible about them.

finally, I still find it VERY hard to believe that upgrading from a hub to a switch gave you much performance increase at all, especially in games, over a 100mbps Full duplex network.

 

[Paladinexe]

The game(s) I am most interested in for now is the Half-Life series e.g. Team Fortress and OpFor. I am currently seeking other online multi-player games. Is it the game networks (Won.net, Battle.net) or the ISP that determines compatibility with NAT?

 

[dszd0g]

Soccerman, please provide a link to the hub in question. I would question whether it is actually a hub. I think my proof is logically sound.

Look at the benchmarks Anandtech did on hubs vs. switches. I no longer own a hub so I can't give you my own benchmarks. To me it just seems like it is common knowledge the advantages of switches over hubs. As far as games themselves, it really depends on the games and more importantly what is going on over the network while you are trying to play the game. If a hub is saturated game performance will be impacted and a switch will not have the same issues.

Think of a hub as a road with one lane for going both directions. If there are two cars they can take turns going back and forth across the road. If you have 8 cars things get a little crowded. Think of a switch as a road where each car has its own lane for going either direction (not completely accurate, but close enough.)

Paladinexe, I do not know those specific games. However, as far as it is the ISP or the game I can answer that. Your ISP can create problems if they do any sort of firewalling. Generally, most ISPs don't do firewalling for the customers. It is usally only small town ISPs or if you have a corporate account and then usually you provide them with the firewall rules you want in place. In most cases the issue is the game itself. If the game networking is written to use access by IP and specific port then it may have NAT issues. NAT works by mapping ports on the machine/device doing the NAT to ports on the inside machines. However, it can not map the same port on itself to more than one machine on the inside. Some games only one machine can play over NAT at the same time. Other games don't work NATed at all.

 

[Paladinexe]

Thanks. That's what I needed to know (but not what I wanted to hear). Most likely I will have to opt for more IP's in order to play games on multiple computers on line. I see the possibility for multi-puters playing separate games online as the servers would be different. Have to wonder about playing the same game but on different servers tho. Although this would defeat a minor reason for sharing connection. (The ability for real time communication with team members with no need for for cpu/bandwidth use.)

 

[Soccerman]

ok, I don't have a link currently available to u, because the one I WOULD try to give you wouldn't work (it would be part of the cisco curriculum that I am currently taking).

second, I'm not disputing that Switches are good, I'm disputing their use on such a small network (about 2 to 20 computers, though capable of flooding the network, rarely ever will, unless you're doing something like ghosting from a network drive through the network to your computer).

now, if you think about it, a full duplex connection is just using 2 more wires (a 2nd pair, compared to half duplex's 1 pair only).

with a half duplex connection, it's like you have one big highway, with every device conected to it. every computer has access to that one connection, and use CSMA/CD to keep collisions to a minimum. now, pretend you have a FULL duplex hub, it just means that you have 2 highways.

this is where I get kind of hazy..

if you think about it, when you run a half duplex connection, you have to have the same wire connected (not necessarily physically, which is where software comes in) to both the send AND recieve terminals on the RJ45 port.

with Full duplex, you normally have 1 wire connected to each terminal (one on send, one on recieve).

on a network with only a hub, your hub has to cross over (all hubs SHOULD do that) your wire, so that it's recieve is connected to all the other ports send wire. inversely YOUR send connection is connected to all other hubs recieve connection this way. this is the only way I can explain it. it's kind of hard for me to visualize right now.

that is simplistic, but I've had both one of my fellow students, AND my teacher say that full duplex hubs are possible, and are available.

 

[dszd0g]

I did some more research. I did find a technology called &quot;N-way autonegotiation.&quot; There were some products (It appears Intel had one) that were marketed as &quot;Full-Duplex hubs.&quot; I get the impression that they were to fill the price gap between hubs and switches when there was a large gap. I could only find references to &quot;20Mbit Full-Duplex hubs.&quot; It appears the technology required all ports to be connected at full-duplex for full-duplex to be enabled. They did not work the same way as normal hubs worked. I think they were marketed as hubs in the same way &quot;DSL modems&quot; are marketed as modems.

As far as 2 machines, there would be no advantage to running at 10Mb full-duplex hub vs. a 10Mb full-duplex switch. However, if one only had 2 machines it wouldn't make sense to use either a hub or a switch. One would just use a cross-over cable.

As far as 3 machines, if one was running at 10Mb full-duplex there would be no advantage of a &quot;hub&quot; over a switch since one machine maxing its port out would max out another (switch) or all (hub) port(s). In either case the third machine would have no bandwidth to use. I could not find reference to the existance of a 100Mb full-duplex hub. So the advantage of full-duplex would be present by going with a switch at 100Mb unless such a hub exists.

At 10Mb the advantage of a full-duplex switch over hub does not become present until 4 machines are on the network. Then each pair of machines can max out their connections to each other with out influencing the other pair.

As far as the wires, read this How to Make Your Own Twisted-pair Network Cables. It does a better job explaining the UTP CAT5 cables than I ever could.