Ethernet: network topology
- by aix
Consider a standard GigE network switch. In order to do the switching, presumably it needs to maintain a map of MAC addresses of all things that exist on the network to its (switch's) port numbers.
How does it maintain such a map?
What are the protocols involved?
If I change the topology of one part of the network, does the entire network get notified or do things get discovered "lazily" (i.e. on first need)?