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As the title suggest.

Let's say we have switch A, B, C and A connect to B with bridge D, and B to C with E.

A <--> D <--> B <--> E <--> C

Does D know the mac of nics connected to A B and C?

Thanks

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In the context of Ethernet, a bridge and a switch are the same thing. A bridge traditionally has just two ports, whereas the "switch" term came along when vendors started making multiport bridges to use in place of dumb hubs (a hub itself being a multiport repeater).

Bridges and switches both perform the 802.1D bridging function. So as far as Ethernet is concerned, all 5 devices in your diagram are identical, regardless of whether they say "bridge" or "switch" on the label.

So D knows which MAC addresses are out its A-facing port, and it knows which MAC addresses are out its B-facing port. It doesn't know anything about which exact ports of A or B those devices are connected to.

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  • Good answer, but I don't think it's just in the ethernet context. In my opinion, there is not a definition for switch at all. A switch is actually a bridge. In the 802 definition, there is a mac service layer, and the function of a bridge is so to say, to connect different mac services into one to provide a whole mac service for every client. When we comes to a switch, we can see every nic as a LAN and the switch was to aggregate those LANs to create a larger LAN. So a switch is a kind of machine and bridge is a concept. I think we can say a switch is a bridge working under ethernet.
    – dspjm
    Jan 7, 2014 at 7:12

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