Network Wiring & Devices
Geert Jan de Groot
Network Wiring
Half/full duplex Ethernet Network Wiring Autonegotiation Structured wiring Optics
Your questions please!
Copper Ethernet media
Coax (10 Mbit/sec)
now obsolete
Twisted pair
Uses pair 1-2, 3-6, 4-5, 7-8 10 Mbit/sec (10BASE-T) 100 Mbit/sec 1000 Mbit/sec (gigabit ethernet) (10.000 Mbit/sec)
A few words on 10BASE-T
Available everywhere today Uses pair 1-2, 3-6
Unshielded twisted pairs Often miswired
Typically half-duplex
Full duplex possible
Max length 100 meters!
10BASE-T cables
Normal cable Used from host to hub
Crossover cable Used hub to hub or host to host
Newer devices often have built-in automatic crossovers
100 Mbit copper networks
3 standards:
100BASE-TX <<-- Winner 100BASE-T4 <<-- Loser 100VG-Anylan <<-- Loser
Dont buy anything but 100BASE-TX!
Fortunately, these days, other stuff is nearly extinct on flea-bay
100BASE-TX
Requires Category 5 (CAT5) cabling
No more, no less
100BASE-TX runs on 2 wire pairs
1-2, 3-6, like 10BASE-T
Cheap today
Built-in in PC chipset Has replaced 10BASE-T equipment
Faster: Gigabit Ethernet
1000 Mbit/sec, 1000BASE-T Still works on CAT5 cabling, tight fit Uses all 4 wire pairs
In both directions
About to get cheap and common
$15 network card Being integrated in PC chipset (replacing 100BASE-TX)
Automatic crossover additional new feature
Still faster: 10 Gigabit Ethernet
10 Gigabit originally only on fiber 10 Gigabit on copper currently being under development by IEEE 802.3 standards committee
Close to Shannon Limit Standard is IEEE 802.3an - IEEE voting process completed
Half/Full duplex
Ethernet is CSMA/CD
Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection
Without Full Duplex, only one station transmitting at any time With Full Duplex, packets can be sent in both directions simultaniously
Half duplex
Listen before you transmit Listen while you transmit If there is a collision, both transmitters will:
Jam Backoff (exponentially, randomly) Re-try sending the packet Minimal packet size: 64 bytes
Collisions are harmless!
Actually help scale / stabilize an ethernet network
Full duplex
Allows transmission/reception simultaneously
Impossible on older coax media Easy to implement on twisted pair/fiber media
No collisions More bandwidth available
Link pulses
10BASE-T sends link pulses when idle
used to test integrity of link (why?) link light
100BASE-T uses faster link pulses
Automatic detection between 10 and 100 possible
Manual setting of half/full duplex
Settings must match
Autonegotiation
Method to automatically select best transmission method between link partners Link pulse now becomes pulse train Automatically sets speed, duplex etc
Autonegotiation (2)
Parallel detection for devices w/o autonegotiation
10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX only Only HDX
Autonegotiation mandatory for gigabit ethernet Technology is mature now
Early chips had serious issues, so be aware
Autonegotiation failure mode
100Mbit FDX Autonegotiation
One end set to fixed 100Mbit, Full-Duplex Other end uses autonegotiation What happens?
Structured wiring
Everything over the same wiring
Wire Types
Category 3: 10 Mbps Category 4: 16 Mbps (for token ring) Category 5: 100 Mbps / 1000 Mbps
Cat5e: tighter tolerances Cat6: Allows even higher bandwiths
Shielded or unshielded Advice: use Cat 5, Cat 5e or Cat6 UTP (unshielded twisted pair) Category 7 and higher marketing hype
Not official IEEE spec
Structured wiring pitfalls
High installation cost
so install enough the first time
Use materials that are qualified for Cat 5e or higher Get guarantee from installer (IP Telephony?)
Fiber optics
Long-haul connections within buildings
Remember: copper = 100m max!
Interconnects between structured wiring wiring cabinets
Must use fiber between buildings
Cable length restrictions Lightning protection
Fiber optics (2)
Multi mode: short hauls Single mode: long hauls
Different fiber diameters Different connector types
ST, SC, VF45 Many others these days
Fiber optics (3)
10BaseF for 10Mbps ethernet 100BaseFX for 100Mbps fast ethernet 1000BaseSX for gigabit ethernet Advice: run more fibers than you need, but dont terminate them (yet)
Power Over Ethernet
Allows to power device over ethernet cable
No power plug or wall wart Uses unused wire pairs
Convenient for places where power is difficult
Wireless access points IP telephones
IEEE 802.3af standard
Be aware of pre-standard (incompatible) equipment
Hubs, Switches and Routers
How do they work? What are the differences?
Packet headers
Ether IP TCP Data
Edst Esrc T
IPsrc IPdst Network devices may use {ether, IP} headers to do its job (sometimes in twisted ways)
Types of ethernet addresses
Typically one interrupt per packet received
Interrupts cost a lot of CPU performance!
Use ethernet addresses to be able to filter packets in ethernet receiver hardware First 3 bytes (actually, only 22 bits) assigned by IEEE
Organisational Unique Identifier
3 types of addresses:
Unicast, Multicast, Broadcast
Ethernet address types
Last 2 bits of 1st byte gives type:
00:01:02:03:04:05 0000 0000: unicast (single host) 01:01:02:03:04:05 0000 0001: multicast (group of hosts) ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff: broadcast (all hosts)
Special case of multicast
Ethernet hub
Hub
Ethernet hub (2)
Hub is layer 1 device Hub does not filter packets Whole hub is one collision domain
Hence cannot do full duplex
Daisychaining of hubs limited Cheap Nearly extinct Doesnt exist for Gigabit Ethernet
Ethernet Switch
Switch
Ethernet Switch (2)
Formally, a switch is just a bridge Switch looks at ethernet headers (layer 2)
ethernet to ethernet only
Learns what addresses are connected to which ports If destination of packet known, the packet is only sent to the destination port
Ethernet Switch (3)
Each port is a separate collision domain
no daisychain limit
Can do full duplex Often one host per port
high performance
Security features
Dualspeed hub includes switch
Router
Router
Router
Router (2)
Router works on IP header (layer 3) Can use almost any underlying media
LAN or WAN
Can have several ports Useful for long distance connections (backbone) Must be configured
IP addresses etc.
VLANs
SWITCH
A, B, C can be customerA, customerB, customerC or sales, administration, engineering, They all share the same network!
Splitting up switches
SWITCH
VLANs allow you to split up the network in smaller network (and divide the switch in smaller parts) VLANs identified by a number - vlan 1234
Splitting up switches (2)
SWITCH
You can set the VLAN per port This is a configuration thing and hence can be changed dynamically - flexible! Network port can be member of multiple VLANs
VLAN trunks
TRUNK
SWITCH
VLAN trunks
TRUNK
SWITCH
All VLANs reachable from the same single ethernet port
VLAN trunks
SWITCH
C B A A VLAN trunk connects to multiple isolated VLANs over the same single interface VLANs are differentiated by an extra VLAN tag field in the packet
Access port: regular ethernet Trunk port: access to multiple VLANs, with tags
VLAN trunks
SWITCH
Multiple trunking protocols exist:
IEEE 802.1Q (open standard) Cisco ISL (proprietary)
802.1Q packet format
Edst Esrc
Etype IP
IP
TCP
Data
VLAN Etype Edst Esrc Etype IP VLAN tag
IP
TCP
Data
VLAN Ethernet type, and VLAN tag are added VLAN tag = 1 - 4094 VLAN tag includes priority field
Ethernet packet size for VLANs
Max ethernet packet size is 1514 bytes
1500 bytes MTU, 14 bytes ethernet header
Trunking adds 4 bytes
But trunking must be transparent! But max ethernet packet size is still 1514 bytes
Ethernet packet size for VLANs (2)
Solution: IEEE discovered that 99.9% devices would support 1514 + 4 = 1518 bytes IEEE 802.3ab says that packets may be 1518 bytes
But additional bytes may only be VLAN tags
See FreeBSD VLAN_MTU, mini jumbograms
