User`s guide

Configuring the Pipeline as a Bridge
Managing the bridge table
5-8 Preliminary January 30, 1998 Pipeline User’s Guide
Figure 5-2 shows the physical addresses of some nodes on the local Ethernet and
one at a remote site. The Pipeline at site A, configured as a bridge, gradually
learns addresses on both networks by looking at each packet’s source address.
Figure 5-2. How the Pipeline creates a bridging table
The resulting bridging table looks like this:
0000D801CFF2 SITEA
080045CFA123 SITEA
08002B25CC11 SITEA
08009FA2A3CA SITEB (Connection Profile #5)
Entries in the Pipeline unit’s bridge table must be relearned within a fixed aging
time limit, or they are removed from the table.
Static bridge-table entries
The administrator can specify up to eight static bridge-table entries in Bridge
profiles. Each connection that has a static bridge table entry can have the Dial
Brdcast parameter set to No.
Dial Brdcast is a very convenient way of bridging packets if the Pipeline has only
a few bridging connections, but it can be expensive in an environment where
many profiles support bridging. (For more information, see “Broadcast addresses
and Dial Brdcast” on page 5-3.) If Dial Brdcast is turned off in a Connection
profile, the Pipeline does not initiate dialing for that connection on the basis of
WAN
Ethernet
Site B
Site A
Ethernet
08009FA2A3CA
0000D801CFF2
080045CFA123
08002B25CC11