On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 9:44 PM, Sean Cody sean@tinfoilhat.ca wrote:
On 2012-01-21, at 7:22 PM, Dan Martin wrote:
... but you don't need a MAC address to route a frame to someone else?
If you put your wireless into "bridge" mode you're basically just disabling the router functions so it acts only as a switch. As a switch it will transparently "echo" (bridge) traffic from the wireless to the LAN and vice versa.
Most home routers are actually (at least) 3 devices in one, router, switch and wireless access point all managed from a single web interface, but inside they are still 3 separate network devices.
Your confusion comes from the fact that even in bridge mode it still has a NIC with a mac and an IP. This is just so it can have an IP address and be managed remotely but as far as the network is concerned it's just another end-point, not a "router".
If you put your router back into "router" mode, it will still bridge traffic from the wireless to the LAN and therefore it will still not show up on a traceroute fromLAN to wireless (or LAN-to-LAN). However, it will show up on a traceroute from the LAN to the WAN.
Don't let the wireless confuse you. Just think of wireless as a replacement for wires. Instead of two RJ45 connectors, you have two radios. They are a bit more complicated to connect (SSID etc), but once the link between the two radios is established, the wireless "goes away". Just like with a physical network cable, once you plug it in and the "link" light comes on, you just forget about it.
John