Networks Bridging 10/100 and Gigabit networks

Bridging 10/100 and Gigabit networks:

Is there any any way to bridge a 10/100 and a gigabit network that uses jumbo frames?

Essentially, part of my home netork is on gigabit, and the rest, which is essentially used for internet only, is still on 10/100, cause it's too expensive to upgrade.

If i simply bridge the connections on my router/firewall (windows box), it slows the gigabit network down to 10/100 speeds.

Thanks

 

Depends on how the network is setup. Not going to be able to pull a gigabit off a 10/100 based network card but there should be no reason that computers on the gigabit side of things should work at the desiered speed...

 

ref.: this thread.

 

right if i'm understanding the problem the 2 guys above ain't.

Your using your machine as a bridge, and its having issues because you've got frame sizes set that are only any good perfomance wise on the 100mbit side?

why are you bridging them? why not just uplink to a port on the gigabit hub?

or have i just read something more into ur problem?

 

I'm fairly sure that the jumbo frames have nothing to do with it at this point.

If i bridge the two networks, (in the network connections folder, the simple way) the transfer speeds onto and off the bridge, which also serves as a fileserver, drops to the speeds i normally see on a 10/100 network.

I have to use a computer to bridge the old and new network because 10/100 hardware cannot support jumbo frame (9014 bytes), while the gigabit network can.

I would rather avoid having to use two different computers (one bridge, one file server).

Or, alernatively, is there any way to share an internet connection between two networks whithout bridging them?

 

Do u understand the thread I gave above?

It does not bridge the 2 networks. The slower segment is used for Internet access, and the faster segment is used for high-bandwidth access to HTPC (or file server in your case). So no need to worry about slowing down your gigabit segment.

A machine having two NICs, one 10/100 and another gigabit work as follow (in that diagram). There is a routing table (traffic map) in each machine that tells what door to take for each destination (IP address). The default destination is the Internet.

U configure the machine so that, to talk to file server, u tell it to go through door#1 (where the gigabit NIC is), and anything else go through door#2 (the slower NIC).

From a DOS windows, do ROUTE PRINT and see how this routing table looks like.

 

Code:

route print
===========================================================================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x2 ...02 04 e2 d7 32 92 ...... MAC Bridge Miniport #2 - Packet Scheduler Minipo
rt
0x3 ...00 40 f4 2c 1f 18 ...... Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC #2
- Packet Scheduler Miniport
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0       68.6.120.1     68.6.***.***       30
         10.1.0.0      255.255.0.0         10.1.1.1        10.1.1.1       20
         10.1.1.1  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       20
   10.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         10.1.1.1        10.1.1.1       20
       68.6.120.0    255.255.252.0      68.6.121.59     68.6.121.59       30
      68.6.***.***  255.255.255.255        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       30
   68.255.255.255  255.255.255.255      68.6.121.59     68.6.121.59       30
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0        127.0.0.1       127.0.0.1       1
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0         10.1.1.1        10.1.1.1       20
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0      68.6.121.59     68.6.121.59       30
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         10.1.1.1        10.1.1.1       1
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255      68.6.121.59     68.6.121.59       1
Default Gateway:        68.6.120.1
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
  None

I hope that helps.

I how do you edit the routing table?

Also, unlike the example in that thread, this is two entirely separate networks with one bridge/router.

 

This looks pretty normal to me, it just doesn't tell the whole story.

Feel like drawing a diagram? Sometimes, it's just a matter of re-arranging the boxes. Doesn't have to be pretty, use Paint if u like.

 

Yah.

Hah! the geocities .txt trick still works.

The fileserver has three NICs in it.

 

What are the speeds of your 3 network cards?

 

Much better.

OK so you are saying if anything on the left side want to talk to the right side, or viceversa, it slows down to 10/100. Of course! You are capped at the speed of the slowest link in the chain.

If doesn't matter that you are bridging two segments via the FW, u can run a CAT5 between the switches and it won't matter.

The only thing to do is, everytime a PC on the right side has got a gigabit NIC, move it to the left. Don't tell me the FW is doing filtering based on what segment you are on, which will make it more complicated (read expensive).

If you have LOTS of traffic going from segment to segment, using a PC box FW to bridge this traffic is inefficient. The PC box is using software to route the packets, a switch uses hardware. Not only that, a switch is able to give you no-collision, full-duplex operation (full throttle). As is, your FW connections are colliding all the time. Is your gigabit switch 10/100 compatible? if so I recommend CAT5'ing the two switches together then a single CAT5 to the FW, assuming no special filtering for the segments as mentioned.

 

So far I dont think anyone has got the question right. The problem here is jumbo frames. These are enlarged frames that are more efficient on gigabit. However if you use them on 100base T you will have fragmented frames which slows everything down to a crawl. Basically the answer is no. You either have the whole network on jumo frames or no computers at all.

 

I don't know what u guys are talking about. If the problem is the jumbos, then configure gigabits so it generates normal 802.3 packets then.

U have a pipe, a section of the pipe is narrower than the rest, the water will flow at the maximum rate of the narrow pipe. How hard a concept is that?

 

Half of the point of gigabit is the jumbo frames. - Funning a transfer at full speed across the network uses perhaps 20% of the cpu (3 ghz p4). A full speed transer ofer even 10/100 uses more than that, thanks to the smaller packet sizes. Gigabit gets you fast efficient transfers.

Everything connected to the gigabit switch has gigabit hardware. The same is true for the 10/100 switch.

Also, i'm saying even if the gigabit side wants to talk the the fileserver, it slows down to 10/100. I don't care about acessing the other network.

 

Hmm you dont seem to be making much sense. The only reason for poor performance I can see from how you are trying to do this is that the fileserver cannot cope. If what you says is true.

 

My point exactly. I have no idea what is going on. When i remove the bridge, the throughput doubles.

 

The reason the bridge is slow is because the bridge makes the connections the fastest they both can go, so since 10/100 is the slowest you are limited to 100mbps on both sides to the FS/R/FW box. So just do the following:

ok, first off you should run cat5e to the gigabit network from the 10/100 network, te gigabit will sense the speed and accomedate all the traffic going to it to suit its hardware maxes. Then have a gigabit card in your Fileserver/router/firewall box and connect cat6 to the gigabit from it. Before you say anything contradicting this, just give it a try.

 

Yes. i know that, i'm using cat 5e and everything. How can i enable both networks to use the internet connection WITHOUT using a bridge?

 

What people are trying to get across is that you need to configure the file server as a full router rather than bridging the ethernet connections together.

You need to go back and re-read what bobmister said with respect to routing tables and the like. You can manually edit the table using the route command but this should not be necessary in your setup.

Essentially you need to assign an ip subnet to the gigabit network, say 192.168.1.0/24 assign an ip subnet to the 10/100 network, say 192.168.2.0/24, give each interface on the file server an ip address in the appropriate network and then configure Network address translation on the internet connection. the file servers default route should be to the ISP and the devices default routes should be to the file server interface on their segment. Once you;ve done that you;re flying. Depending on your OS you may also need something like winroute in order to make the NAT easy as well.

But I'm just re-iterating what bobmister already said here.

J