50
MAC Table
This chapter introduces the MAC Table screen.
50.1 MAC Table Overview
The MAC Table screen (a MAC table is also known as a filtering database) shows how frames are forwarded or filtered across the Switch’s ports. When a device (which may belong to a VLAN group) sends a packet which is forwarded to a port on the Switch, the MAC address of the device is shown on the Switch’s MAC Table. It also shows whether the MAC address is dynamic (learned by the Switch) or static (manually entered in the Static MAC Forwarding screen).
The Switch uses the MAC Table to determine how to forward frames. See the following figure.
1The Switch examines a received frame and learns the port from which this source MAC address came.
2The Switch checks to see if the frame's destination MAC address matches a source MAC address already learned in the MAC Table.
•If the Switch has already learned the port for this MAC address, then it forwards the frame to that port.
•If the Switch has not already learned the port for this MAC address, then the frame is flooded to all ports. Too much port flooding leads to network congestion.
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