[colug-432] Gigabit Hubs (Not Switches)

[Rob Funk]

Jim Wildman wrote:
> Yes, managed switches (Cisco, etal) typically provide this capability.
> And really, if you have multiple gigabit streams...you're really past
> the hub stage (IMO)

You don't have to go all the way up to the Cisco end of things for
this. Netgear has some 8-port and 5-port switches under $100 that
include "port mirroring" to copy traffic to a designated port. I like
the $95 GS108T for general-purpose use, but there are cheaper ones,
like the $50 GS105E, that will do the monitoring job and a lot else.
  https://wiki.wireshark.org/SwitchReference/NetGear

(Staples is a good place to get these, as well as a good place to get
those Brother printers we were talking about.)

Other not-outrageously-expensive switches have this capability as
well, but I'm not familiar with those.
  https://wiki.wireshark.org/SwitchReference


> On Tue, 10 Nov 2015, jep200404 at columbus.rr.com wrote:
> > On Tue, 10 Nov 2015 21:58:42 -0500 (EST), R P Herrold <herrold at owlriver.com> wrote:
> >> yes -- a [switch] (a good switch) will limit what traffic it
> >> exposes to non-relevant destination ports
> >
> > I stock both 10 Mbit/s and 100 Mbit/s hubs for such,
> > which have sufficed for all my needs.
> >
> > Wondering about the future,
> > I looked for gigabit hubs without much success.
> >
> > The work around I think of for that would be
> > to set up a computer with at least two gigabit ethernet ports
> > as a gigabit hub with ebtables.
> > That reminds me of someone's dream laptop.
> > One could also run tcpdump/wireshark on such a "hub".
> >
> > Are there gigabit hubs? If not, are there special gigabit
> > switches that would copy all packets to some special
> > sniffing port?