AcerRouter 700 User Guide B-1
BRouters
Appendix B Glossary
This section provides some common networking terms you may find in this user
guide.
ARP Table
Address Resolution Protocol table, a cache table that contains MAC address to IP
address mapping information. To send an IP packet to another device on the same
LAN, the source device has to acquire the MAC address of the destination device
first. If such information is already maintained in the ARP cache, the corresponding
MAC address will be used to transmit the data packet. Otherwise, the data will be
queued up first, and an ARP broadcast packet sent out to the LAN, and the destination
is expected to respond with the IP-to-MAC mapping. When the response is received,
the data that was previously queued up will be transmitted, and the mapping
information stored into the ARP cache table for re-use later.
Authentication
Authentication is often used together with encryption, and can be enabled or disabled
on a per serial interface basis. It is like a password used by both ends of a serial
interface to tell the other side who it is, and to make sure that the other end is who it
claims to be. Once this feature is enabled, every packet will contain the encrypted
authentication key, and any packet that fails the authentication will be dropped.
Bootp Relay Agent
A router that will forward bootp requests to bootp servers that do not reside in the
same network (the router can also be called a bootp proxy server for that reason). A
router can be configured as a bootp relay agent, with up to 5 bootp servers configured.
Whenever a bootp request is received by the router, the packet will be sent to each of
the bootp servers.
Bridge
An intelligent, multi-network interface device that is responsible for forward packets
between different interfaces based on data link layer address information. When a
packet is received, its source MAC address will automatically be learned and
maintained in the bridging address table. At the same time, the forwarding decision is
made based on its destination MAC address by consulting the bridging address table.
Bridge Address Table
A table containing mapping (association) between MAC addresses and interfaces in a
bridge. The table is automatically learned (by inspecting each and every packet it sees
from each interface) and used for packet forward decision making by the bridge. See
Bridge.