Is it possible to receive a package from a pc on a switch and send that package to all the ports as unicast (Not broadcast) packages?

[josedilone19]

hello

My network profesor, asked me that question on the class and I couldnt answer it. He asked me if is possible to send a package to all the ports as unicast packages? I would like to know de answer.

[Jon Marshall]

Jose

It depends what he means exactly.

A switch when it receives a packet/frame it will look at the destination mac address. If it knows which port that mac address is on it will only send it to that port.

If it doesn't have an entry for the mac address then it has to send it to all ports within the same vlan except the one it was received on.

So technically the packet is unicast ie. meant for one mac address but it is flooded out of all other ports in the same vlan.

This may be what he was referring to.

Edit - note that generally this shouldn't happen and it is not desirable behaviour for a switch.

Jon

[Jose Solano]

Hi,

See this link below:

http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/~gorry/course/intro-pages/uni-b-mcast.html

Regards,