Peering VLANs and MAC addresses

Thu Nov 10 00:16:05 UTC 2005

On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 11:59:38PM -0000, Chris Roberts wrote:
> 
> I think the 'connect only routers' adage is probably a good conservative
> motto to stick to. There are situations where connecting switches and
> hybrids to IXPs is certainly more efficient and better suited, but only if
> you know what you're doing or have a good reason for it. As I understand it,
> most IXPs are pretty well protected against guff coming from switches these
> days anyway, but it still doesn't make sense in my mind to have a free for
> all on what people can connect. At least this adage might make someone who
> might not be experienced in what they're doing think twice and ask someone
> who knows better before doing it (as indeed it seems to have done in this
> case).

There is no technical reason why you can't hook up as many switches as you 
need, is there any real difference between a L3 switch and a L3 router 
(except for its internal architecture and maybe a couple of 0's at the end 
of the price :P). There are only good products, and bad products, smart 
people, and stupid people. Stupid people running bad products will find a 
way to leak stupid stuff to the IX and screw things up royally, regardless 
of the type of product connected. Smart people running good products 
USUALLY won't, no matter how many layer 2 and 3 switches stand between a 
router and an IX port.

Of course I think part of the qualification for being considered a smart 
person involves being able to connect switches to IX's without blowing 
anything up, so those results might be a little biased. "Only connecting 
routers" is really just attempting to mitigate the effects of stupid 
people by forcing them to run configurations so simple "even a monkey 
could pull it off".

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
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