what would happen if you plugged a network switch into itself
-F
networking tech
@Felthry so i just tried it on my own switch, a 24 port unmanaged gigabit ethernet switch. once i did so, all of the activity lights for each port currently plugged in, including the two linked to themselves, started blinking a lot as if managing a lot of traffic from all of the ports. i unplugged the cable and this stopped.
i then decided to look it up instead of experimenting without looking information up first. turns out doing this on a basic switch can cause the switch to repeatedly send packets to itself, faster and faster, until it takes down the network. If the switch supports a more advanced feature known as the spanning tree protocol, though, it'll realize that it's plugged into itself and disable those ports.
i then decided to look it up instead of experimenting without looking information up first. turns out doing this on a basic switch can cause the switch to repeatedly send packets to itself, faster and faster, until it takes down the network. If the switch supports a more advanced feature known as the spanning tree protocol, though, it'll realize that it's plugged into itself and disable those ports.
re: networking tech
@holly @Felthry yeah, what i guessed would happen is that when the router says every once in a while "everyone please make yourself known" or whatever (i don't remember exactly how this works), the switch would say over one port "who are you"
and then it would receive "who are you" on the other port and say "i'm a switch"
and then when it got "i'm a switch" on the first port it would figure it out
i guess not
re: networking tech
turns out, no, it causes a lot of problems for an unmanaged switch since it does just enough on its own to get itself in trouble, and a managed switch's probably designed to recognize the upcoming problem and neutralize it. you learn something new each day, i guess, hahah.