Point to Point Ethernet

Wed Jul 8 18:33:18 UTC 2009

On Wed, 8 Jul 2009, Ricky Beam wrote:

> Ethernet is not a point-to-point technology.  It is a multi-point 
> (broadcast, bus, etc.) technology with DECADES of optimization and 
> adoption.  No one has gotten IEEE to adopt a larger frame size, and you 
> want to drop *fundamental* elements of ethernet?!?

I think the latest suggestion was to do away with the mechanisms, not 
change the frame format. It's like when you take a /30, run isis/ospf over 
it and tell the routing protocol it's a point to point link so it doesn't 
have to create a node for the "multi access network" that really isn't 
there.

Same way here, putting the ethernet link in "p2p" mode would mean it 
wouldnt do arp anymore, didn't care about source or destination MACs, it 
just installed static ARP entry for other end and sent out packets, other 
end would be in promisc mode and accept anything.

I don't see much gain from this though, and it's another way things can be 
configured wrong and cause havoc if you connect this interface to a LAN.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se