Where can I learn the intricacies of TCP/IP and Ethernet?

questions that pop into my mind...

is that 120Mbps when no one else is using the network? are the cables good and laid within the parameters of the usual best practices? (ie not too long or near something that could cause interference if copper, not bent to hell if fiber... etc) are you sure that a) all the machines have gigabit capable hardware and b) are set up in their OS to work as such? (it's easy for a stupid user to actually fudge network settings in windows for example.) are there ways you could balance the traffic by organizing things a little differently? (putting certain machines that need to talk to eachother on the same switch, while keeping machines that don't as separate as convenient, placing certain machines closer to the WAN connection if they're public servers, etc.)

bear in mind i'm talking out of my ass here. i'm a network programmer and not a network systems guy. just throwing some ideas out.
m.

I'm no help with this shit, I know what an erlang is and I know what a router on a stick is but as far as maximizing throughput on a bitch I have the bare minimum of clues, sorry.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/lan-switch.htm

m.

This looks to be a sound piece of advice. It's not really my area, but ethernet works by having a machine send a message, and if there's already a message going round the network then the new message is simply canned; the machine waits a few milliseconds and tries again, hoping to avoid a collision.

On a heavily loaded network this can impact bandwidth, so the suggestion to sort into various subnets makes sense, isolating your heavy loads into one subnet. Token ring is a bit different, in that to send a message you have to request the token, then you can send a message. This is a bit out of fashion these days though. I've no idea whether or not this tends to lead to greater use of the bandwidth although it sounds as though it would. Means you need a server to handle the token broking though.

I can tell you where you can learn about TCP/IP, but this isn't really what you're asking... You're asking about what's termed the 'data link' layer in the OSI model. TCP/UDP and IP are the two layers above this in the model: network and transport respectively. I'm less sure of where to find info about the data link layer.

i'd be really surprised if this network isnt already vlanned, its just, is it vlanned properly. i have seen docile configs in my time. (multiple secondary addresses on the router interface hahahahah, d'oh)

There are two Netgear Layer 3 managed gigabit switches at the heart of it.

flow moves from ingest (100Mbit network cards in machines there), to central storage, (shortly to be Apple XSAN) and from there to the fplayout. Temporarily copying between the SAN and the palyout machines will be controlled by to servers running our playlist management software, this is while the software is ported to OS X). the XSAN will present itself to the network as two NAS heads.

the physical infrastructure is a mess, the last maintainer of it stringing cables any which way between racks and often not even bothering to label them. Plenty are longer than necessary and it is all UTP of one sort or another.

The switches each give me 24 RJ-45 type ports each to play with and 4 SFP type ports.

Cards are a mixture of 3Com and Intel single port giggabit, dual port intel giggabit and dual Apple gigabit on the XSAN

So where do I go from here?

That sounds uncannily like the server room here.

(we only have a single rack, but it's still in a godawful mess - patch cables so tangled that it's impossible to get to some sockets without rewiring the ones either side; the odd cable wandering out of the front of the rack; a pile of Kilostream NTUs on top of it, half of which are out of use and waiting to be returned to BT)

Networking Foundations
by Patrick Ciccarelli and Christina Falukner ISBN:0782143717

Network Analysis, Architecture & Design, Second Edition
by James D. McCabe ISBN:1558608877

High-Performance Data Network Design: Design Techniques and Tools
by Tony Kenyon ISBN:1555582079

Enjoy

i have a router with two ethernet sockets, both of which are currently in use. there is also a usb socket, which isn't used. i just got a network hard-drive which i need to connect, via ethernet cable - is it possible to get a 'splitter', so two ethernet cables share the socket, or a thingum to convert the ethernet cable into a usb cable, to use the usb socket?

You need an ethernet switch to connect more than one device to the LAN port on your router, should cost much more than a tenner.

Ethernet to usb thingamajigs do exist though, so if you have that port free, it could be worth a try

Not necessarily the one I linked to, that's not very cheap.

thanks ed and stan - just found cheap ethernet to usb thingummy, if that doesn't work i shall grab an ethernet switch...

I doubt the usb socket on the router will work that way. For starters is it rectangular (outbound) or square (inbound). Even if this is the former, I doubt it will support a usb to ethernet device.

"thanks ed and stan - just found cheap ethernet to usb thingummy, if that doesn't work i shall grab an ethernet switch..."

This will not in any way work ever. I'm not going to explain it will never work just never.

You need a 4/8 port switch and uplink it to yr router.

Oh, ok! Just thought it might, but yeah.

think of it like this

yr router

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/201596371/wall_socket_2_Gang_switched_UK_standard_.summ.jpg

a switch and cable with uplink

http://www.skevi.com/images/3750020.jpg

wicked. i has ordered one of those too. if anyone wants an ethernet-usb thingum let me know (i always know my initial cheap purchase will be usurped in usefulness by the slightly-more-expenseive version)

Rocking it ethernet style on my laptop, download speeds are so much faster than on wifi.