Mac Address Table & Learning; Filtering And Forwarding; Store And Forward; Switch Operation - Encore ENH905-NWY User Manual

4. Switch Operation

4.1 MAC Address Table and Learning
The switch is implemented with a MAC address table where is composed of many
entries. Each entry is used to store the address information of network nodes on
the network, including MAC address, port ID, etc. The information is the most
important base to do packet filtering and forwarding.
When one packet comes in from any port, the switch will learn the source address,
port ID, and the other related information in address table. Therefore, the content
of the MAC table will update dynamically.
4.2

Filtering and Forwarding

When one packet comes in from any port of the switch, it will check the
destination address besides the source address learning. The switch will look up
the address table for the destination address. If not found, this packet will be
forwarded to all the other ports except the port where this packet comes in. If
found, and the destination address is located at different port from this packet
comes in, the packet will be forwarded to the port where this destination address
is located according to the information of address table. But, if the destination
address is located at the same port as this packet comes in then this packet will
be filtered.

4.3 Store and Forward

Store-and-forward is one kind of packet-forwarding methodology. As a
store-and-forward switch, it will store the complete packet in the internal buffer
and do the complete error checking before transmitting to the network. Therefore,
no error packets will disturb the network. It is the best choice when a network
needs efficiency and stability.
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