[Gllug] Stupid networking question (hardware)

[Bernard Peek]

In message <1141040138.8379.6.camel at heorot.ygdrasil>, M.Blackmore 
<mblackmore at oxlug.org> writes
>>From the one-never-puts-in-enough-wires dept. :-(
>
>If one needs to put 2 or 3 devices at the end of only one wire, and has
>an old dim hub to use, how does it work when its attached to the switch
>at the other end?

What you need is a crossover connection between ports on the two 
hub/switches. There are several ways to get that.

The easy way is you buy modern kit for at least one end of the link, it 
will handle the crossover automatically, it will just work with whatever 
cable you use. Straight-through or crossover, either will work.

You can plug one end of a straight-through cable into the uplink port on 
one of the devices. Sometimes you see two sockets labelled either/or. 
One of them has an internal crossover.

You can put a crossover cable between two ordinary ports. The crossover 
gets done by the cable. If necessary you can buy a crossover connector 
that fits between two ordinary patch-cables to make a crossover 
connection. More bits means more bits that can go wrong so this isn't 
the ideal solution but it should work for most 100Mbit connections.

>Do I need to use a special uplink (or something) port on the switch, or
>will any port on the switch in the study do (wherein resides the
>smoothie firewall and the fileserver)?
>
>And if in the nearish/mid future I get around to building the myth TV
>server I've promised myself for radio and tv, will having only a single
>wire lead to congestion or should I bite the bullet for that and do
>something drastic like run one down the outside wall...?
>
>Teach me not to have put even more redundancy into running wiring
>downstairs before putting down the laminate flooring upstairs :-(

And if you have a kitchen rewired remember that you always need more 
power sockets. Fit the kitchen with its own ring-circuit and fit at 
least twenty sockets.

Also, lay cables in conduit and run a string alongside the cables so you 
can pull a new one through.




-- 
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author.

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