Futre networking issues possibly

[Prime_Evil]

it is seeming more and more like hubs that broadcast all packets will be outdated. currently all netgear hubs that are 10/100 are in fact Switches. Most likely a cost issue i'm sure. I am using an old 10baseT hub... none of my switches or (so called ) 10/100 hubs will work with showeq.. or any other packet sniffer for that matter, My question is. is there a way to make this work on a MAC level perhaps? hmmmmm just trying to figure out what to do when my fiddy hunnerd year old hub takes a poop. I surely don't want to use my linux box as a router simply to get Seq packets.. anyhow just wondering if anyone else thought about this or am i missing something...

[monster69]

The way that most low end 10/100 "hubs" operate is the 10Mb side is hubbed to all ports adn the 100Mb is hubbed to all ports. 10Mb and 100Mb traffic is then switched between these two planes.

So, if you set all your PC's to the same speed, either 10 or 100, they should be hubbed at that point and work as you would expect.

If your device is actually a true switch (i.e. all ports are switched instead of the 10Mb plane and the 100Mb plane) then hopefully you can set one of your ports to "monitor" another port. In this case, all traffic destined for your EQ PC will be replicated to a second port where you would have your SEQ box plugged in.

[fryfrog]

actually, from what i have seen your description is both fairly right, and slightly wrong.

a.) 10mbit and 100mbit ARE seperated planes, and switching is done between them. so, a 10mbit device can't sniff a 100mbit device. you have this right, dead on for all devices.

b.) some devices will go into switch mode when there are ONLY one speed hooked up. eg: a 10/100mbit hub, with only 100mbit devices hooked up will actually be a switch (this is in the case of both of the linksys hubs i own, both different models seperated by a few years of age). i think this is true for nearly ALL linksys hubs, and probably true for many hubs made now.

c.) by adding a 10mbit device that is NOT doing the sniffing, the entire 10/100mbit hub actually becomes a real hub. all 100mbit traffic is broadcast to all 100mbit devices, all 10mbit traffic is directed to all other 10mbit devices.

unfortunatly, this is a VERY annoying issue to overcome. here is the way i did it, and a few suggestions for other ways.

1.) my router is a p200mmx with 2x 10mbit 3c509b. it is plugged into one of the hubs. anything that needs to sniff, is hooked to that hub. that hub is then plugged into the other hub, and most computers are hooked to that one. that way, all traffic flows from the unsniffing hub -> sniffing hub -> router -> internet.

2.) just hook some random 10mbit device up to the network. if you want to have a 100mbit network for the speed, just plugging in a 10mbit hub should be suffecient to make it work. if you have a dedicated router, putting a 10mbit hub between the 100mbit hub/switch and the dedicated router should fix it, without effecting local lan speed.

[Prime_Evil]

You where dead on..
Here is what i learned to add,
The netgear hubs, are really switchs and they operate as you described.
if they are all 100's it will brodcast the packets. if you have a 10 in there it will only broadcast to the 10's and the 100's to the 100's I would assume it is slightly different how the different manufactures operate, I just switched my main switch/router to a 10/100 hub and upgraded my last 2 nics to 100's and it works like a dream.

[RavenCT]

Worst case, just look on ebay for a cheap 10 Mbit hub.... I got one for about $12 (plus shipping of course)...

Works very well...

[KennySP]

And slightly better than worse case get a 100MBit hub, 10MBit is too slow =)

KennySP

[RavenCT]

Must be nice sitting on that OC3 connection then

I don't know many of us at home that might have more than a 1 MBit connection...

Ah well... Welcome to Broadband... who knows what the future will bring....

[casey]

100 mbit isnt for the outbound computer, its for the internal network

heres a scenario that illustrates it

there are 15 computers on this network
one exports a bout 25 gigs over various nfs mounts (/home /www to about 7 other boxes, and / and /usr to 1)
2 boxes running showeq over remote X
various lan gaming
etc.

showeq over remote X at a high res can easily suck up 1.5-5 mbit/s all by itself (X is a high bandwidth application). Thats reason enough for 100mbit, because you generally are not going to see speeds of 5 mbit on a 10mbit hub.

during big nfs activity i've seen the network throughput hit 150 mbit (full duplex switch )

that was at my last apt current apt i only have 7 boxes, but seq is still exported to another box (x2, 2 seq's to 2 different boxes for 2 different players), My 100mbit switch keeps things nice and fast.

[RavenCT]

I only meant that if running SEQ and EQ on one segment on two different machines... I wasn't even talking about running any other X-Windows apps or NFS, etc. etc. etc....

[Froglok Forager]

If that worries you, do what I do... put two NICs in your linux machine and route all the EQ data thru it. You can make it your internet firewall and such while you're at it.

FF

[RavenCT]

Um, I'd rather just leave it the way it is... use the slower hub and not put a gateway on the Linux box so it has no way to talk to the outside world... just my paraniod 2cp

[fee]

FYI any system supporting raw sockets and running applications as root CAN easily talk to the outside world. If it can listen to the wire, it can certainly talk on it too.

[Prime_Evil]

I have 7 pc's and one sun on my network.

I have standard IDSL (in the boonies) 164kb Laugh its ok. i do.
and this is what i run on it.

3 Linux/windows gaming systems
3 windows systems
1 sun.

and i must say, 100 ALL THE WAY baby.
10 hubs are just to slow now, its like. remember when you had your first 28.8 modem, now way in hell where you going back to a 2600.

[RavenCT]

It is true that if a system can "listen" to the wire that it certainly can talk on the wire... but as far as TCP/IP is concerned, if there is no gateway defined, the there is no place other than the local LAN for the packets to go. Now, unless Veriant devises some way for EQ to send a packet that SEQ sends some sort of response too (ie, packet x causes SEQ to send either packet y or packet x+y, or scan a specific "active" port) and the Everquest client can "detect" that and notify on it, then it is impossible for the SEQ box to actually be detected...

That was more my point... Not if 10/100/1000 mbit is faster etc...

Personally, the first modem I ever dealt with was an acoustic coupler running at 110 baud... so I know about slow

Anyway, that's the last I'm going to bother anyone on this subject.. ( I know, I know, let it die already )

[KennySP]

You could always cut the transmit wire if you are *THAT* worried about it.

KennySP