Network terminology
I'm looking for a resource that will help me to consolidate my knowledge of network adapters and interfaces and am hoping someone can recommend one.
My current knowledge of networks is preliminary and I feel like I need to improve it to benefit from this unit properly.
I understand the differences between the physical and logical network so I guess that covers network topology. Although my understanding of devices in the physical network can definitely be improved. For instance what's the difference between a hub, switch and bridge. Or is bridge only a logical construct that is used to set the 'mode' of an interface?
I think what I need most help understanding is logical configuration. The 'why', more than the 'how'.
When I see the terms adapter and interface I'm never quite sure if they're being used interchangeably or if they're different.
My current understanding is:
adapter: the physical device identified using a MAC address
interface: a logical device configured by the system the adapter is connected to
Is it correct to say that an adapter can have multiple interfaces?
As you can tell I have a lot of questions because I'm yet to understand networking completely. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
Comments
-
I'm not sure we have a hard definition but you are correct, adapter usually refers to the hardware adapter and interface is a virtual adapter.
Bridges can be real devices, in past decades I have installed many of them, but nowadays bridges are pretty much all software devices.
A bridge extends or joins networks, a hub is a one-2-many shared connection and a switch is a one-2-many non-shared connection. All of these work at the lowest levels of the network stack.Lee
2 -
Thanks @lee42x that definitely helps me to understand the structure better.
I've been using this resource to fill in some gaps. I find it's a really well structured document.
0
Categories
- All Categories
- 178 LFX Mentorship
- 178 LFX Mentorship: Linux Kernel
- 773 Linux Foundation IT Professional Programs
- 383 Cloud Engineer IT Professional Program
- 175 Advanced Cloud Engineer IT Professional Program
- 75 DevOps IT Professional Program - Discontinued
- 7 DevOps & GitOps IT Professional Program
- 102 Cloud Native Developer IT Professional Program
- 7.6K Training Courses & Learning Paths
- 9 AI & ML Training
- 1 Blockchain & Decentralized Identity Training
- 28 Cloud & Containers Training
- 3 Cybersecurity Training
- 2 DevOps & Site-Reliability Training
- 1 Linux Kernel Development Training
- 2 Networking Training
- 2 Open Source Best Practice Training
- 5 System Administration Training
- 1 System Engineering Training
- 4 Web & Application Development Training
- 798 Hardware
- 202 Drivers
- 68 I/O Devices
- 37 Monitors
- 96 Multimedia
- 173 Networking
- 91 Printers & Scanners
- 92 Storage
- 771 Linux Distributions
- 81 Debian
- 68 Fedora
- 23 Linux Mint
- 13 Mageia
- 24 openSUSE
- 151 Red Hat Enterprise
- 31 Slackware
- 13 SUSE Enterprise
- 356 Ubuntu
- 469 Linux System Administration
- 31 Cloud Computing
- 73 Command Line/Scripting
- Github systems admin projects
- 101 Linux Security
- 79 Network Management
- 101 System Management
- 46 Web Management
- 150 Mobile Computing
- 20 Android
- 115 Development
- 1.2K New to Linux
- 1K Getting Started with Linux
- 404 Off Topic
- 126 Introductions
- 34 Study Material
- 1K Programming and Development
- 310 Kernel Development
- 717 Software Development
- 1K Software
- 416 Applications
- 182 Command Line
- 5 Compiling/Installing
- 71 Games
- 320 Installation
- Archived
- 183 Small Talk
- 2 LFD140 Class Forum
- 1.4K LFS258 Class Forum
Upcoming Training
-
August 20, 2018
Kubernetes Administration (LFS458)
-
August 20, 2018
Linux System Administration (LFS301)
-
August 27, 2018
Open Source Virtualization (LFS462)
-
August 27, 2018
Linux Kernel Debugging and Security (LFD440)
