Prestige 2602HW Series User’s Guide

CHAPTER 30

Bridging Setup

This chapter shows you how to configure the bridging parameters of your Prestige.

30.1 Bridging in General

Bridging bases the forwarding decision on the MAC (Media Access Control), or hardware address, while routing does it on the network layer (IP) address. Bridging allows the Prestige to transport packets of network layer protocols that it does not route, for example, SNA, from one network to another. The caveat is that, compared to routing, bridging generates more traffic for the same network layer protocol, and it also demands more CPU cycles and memory.

For efficiency reasons, do not turn on bridging unless you need to support protocols other than IP on your network. For IP, enable the routing if you need it; do not bridge what the Prestige can route.

30.2Bridge Ethernet Setup

Basically, all non-local packets are bridged to the WAN. Your Prestige does not support IPX.

30.2.1Remote Node Bridging Setup

Follow the procedure in another section to configure the protocol-independent parameters in Menu 11.1 – Remote Node Profile. For bridging-related parameters, you need to configure Menu 11.3 – Remote Node Network Layer Options.

1To setup Menu 11.3 – Remote Node Network Layer Options shown in the next figure, follow these steps:

2In menu 11.1, make sure the Bridge field is set to Yes.

Chapter 30 Bridging Setup

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