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Figure 1.11. Network expansion with repeaters<br />

and bridges.<br />

The bridge acts as traffic-handler between <strong>the</strong> two cable segments. As a node sends<br />

a packet <strong>to</strong> ano<strong>the</strong>r node, <strong>the</strong> bridge listens <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> transmission. If <strong>the</strong> sending and<br />

receiving nodes are on <strong>the</strong> same cable segment, <strong>the</strong> bridge is passive. If <strong>the</strong> sending<br />

node is on one side of <strong>the</strong> bridge and <strong>the</strong> receiving node is on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r, <strong>the</strong> bridge<br />

passes <strong>the</strong> packet from one cable segment <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r. The bridge determines <strong>the</strong><br />

destination segment by looking at <strong>the</strong> transmission pro<strong>to</strong>col destination address<br />

that is included in <strong>the</strong> header of <strong>the</strong> packet.<br />

Modern <strong>network</strong> bridges are called learning bridges because <strong>the</strong>y learn <strong>the</strong><br />

transmission pro<strong>to</strong>col addresses of <strong>the</strong> nodes <strong>the</strong>y are adjacent <strong>to</strong> dynamically. The<br />

bridge looks at every packet transmitted on its connected segments. It takes <strong>the</strong><br />

transmission pro<strong>to</strong>col source addresses from <strong>the</strong> transmitted packets and builds a<br />

Bridge Address Table (BAT), as shown in Figure 1.12.

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