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c2h2
Asked: 2011-05-15 22:49:13 +0800 CST

HOWTO: Ring Ethernet Lan, My drawing Correct?

  • 772

I have a special demand that to improve the redundancy of a network. (any of the cable between switches broken will NOT disconnect any clients)

   S = a switch    C = a computer   - = CAT5 cable

                  Internet
                     |
                  ROURTER              C
                     |                /
         S---S---S---S---S---S---S---S--C
         |                       |
      C--S---S---S---S---S---S---S
         /
        C

This seems should work, but:

  1. Does it work just out of the box?
  2. Any settings needed? (on router? or pc?)
  3. Will a packet gets passed around infinitely?

Thanks guys!

ethernet local-area-network

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer
    1. Not usually
    2. Enable spanning tree protocol on all switches.
    3. If spanning tree is disabled, then yes. Else, no.
    • 4

  2. As @pavium says, your design is outdated, no networks need to be designed like that any more, it is much more standard to have a tree type structure:

    
                 Internet
                    |
                  Router
                    |
                   / \
                  /   \
                 SR----SR
                  |     |
                 SR1---SR2
                 /\     /\
                /  \   /  \
               /    \ /    \
              S1     S2    S3
               |      |     |
               C      C     C

SR = multilayer switch

    Where S1 & S3 would also be cross connected to the multilayer switches SR1 & SR2. If multilayer switches are not available this is still valid using only layer 2 and much safer than using a straightforward loop.

    • 2

  3. This seems like stepping back to the bad old days of coaxial-based ethernet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2

    The weakest point of such systems is often the connectors between nodes, and dramatically increasing the number of connections, as depicted in your diagram, will not give greater reliability.

    The ring structure is similar to Token Ring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_ring

    This has largely been superseded by the improved technology of switched ethernet

    • 0