Thanks John.
On 2012-01-22, at 8:32 AM, John Lange wrote:
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".
Yes, I wondered why a MAC address was supplied but didn't show up anywhere, wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.
Since 2 MAC addresses are given, I assume the "Airport ID" is to manage the device over wireless, and the "Ethernet ID" is to manage it over wired. Is the IP address mapped to both of these?
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 _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Dan Martin GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143@shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on