User`s guide

Table Of Contents
Pipeline User’s Guide Preliminary January 30, 1998 5-1
5
Configuring the Pipeline as a Bridge
This chapter contains the following sections:
Introduction to Ascend bridging
In the Pipeline, bridges are used primarily to provide connectivity for protocols
other than IP and IPX (AppleTalk, for example). They can also be used to join
segments of an IP or IPX network. Because a bridging connection forwards
packets at the hardware address level (link layer), it does not distinguish between
protocol types and it requires no protocol-specific network configuration.
Bridging is very easy to configure and is commonly used to:
Provide non-routed protocol connectivity with another site
Link two sites so that their nodes appear to be on the same LAN
Support protocols that depend on broadcasts to function, such as BOOTP
Be aware that bridges examine all packets on the LAN (called “promiscuous
mode”), so they incur greater processor and memory overhead than routers. On
heavily loaded networks, this increased overhead can result in slower
performance.
Introduction to Ascend bridging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-1
Enabling bridging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-6
Managing the bridge table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-7
Configuring bridged connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-9