Basic; Paths; Paths, Ports, And Virtual Ports; Paths And Ports - 3Com NETBuilder SI Using Manual

6
Paths, Ports, and
Virtual Ports

Paths and Ports

B
ASIC
P
AND ATHS
This chapter contains conceptual information about ports and paths and
contains basic configuation procedures for each of the interfaces on your
SuperStack II NETBuilder SI bridge/router.
Ports and paths are the fundamental interface units on the bridge/router,
and understanding the concept of ports and paths is important. This
section defines ports and paths and explains how they are numbered.
The fundamental difference between paths and ports is that the path is
the physical interface and the port is the logical interface in the software
that is mapped to the physical path. Figure 6 illustrates the relationship
between paths and ports.
Figure 6 Relationship Between Physical Paths and Logical Ports
Physical connectors
A path is the physical interface that connects a bridge/router to a physical
network medium such as Ethernet or a serial line. Each path is associated
with a connector. If you have a built-in ISDN connector, each B channel is
assigned a separate path, for instance 3.1 and 3.2.
C
ONFIGURATION OF
NETBuilder bridge/router chassis
Physical path
!<path>
Physical path Logical port
!<path>
Logical port
!<port>
!<port>
P
ORTS