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OmniSwitch 6600 Family Network Configuration Guide April 2006 page 2-1
2 Managing Source
Learning
Transparent bridging relies on a process referred to as source learning to handle traffic flow. Network
devices communicate by sending and receiving data packets that each contain a source MAC address and a
destination MAC address. When packets are received on switch network interface (NI) module ports,
source learning examines each packet and compares the source MAC address to entries in a MAC address
database table. If the table does not contain an entry for the source address, then a new record is created
associating the address with the port it was learned on. If an entry for the source address already exists in
the table, a new one is not created.
Packets are also filtered to determine if the source and destination address are on the same LAN segment.
If the destination address is not found in the MAC address table, then the packet is forwarded to all other
switches that are connected to the same LAN. If the MAC address table does contain a matching entry for
the destination address, then there is no need to forward the packet to the rest of the network.
In This Chapter
This chapter describes how to manage source learning entries in the switch MAC address table (often
referred to as the forwarding or filtering database) through the Command Line Interface (CLI). CLI
commands are used in the configuration examples; for more details about the syntax of commands, see the
OmniSwitch CLI Reference Guide.
Configuration procedures described in this chapter include:
• Creating a static MAC address table entry on page 2-4.
• Configuring the MAC address table aging time on page 2-7.
• Displaying MAC address table information on page 2-9.