whats the diff between a router, bridge and gateway? can some one explain this to me clear i dont get it i have read and read but it sounds chinese to me

For starters, one of these are not the same as the others. The bridge is an Ethernet device -- Layer 1. It simply receives electrical impulses from one wire, and re-sends them on the another wire. It is a dumb device that simply extends range. A hub is also called a multi-port bridge because it does the same thing. A gateway is the device or address used to access another network. The Net is really built around gateways. Think of it has a highway system -- your packet of information is a car on this highway. The car has to get off at every exit and ask the person directing traffic where their destination is. If they say "not here" then you get back on the highway and go to the next stop. If it is here, then they get off, and the information gets processed. So, a gateway is just something that links you to the next gateway -- creating the network (simplified incredibly). A router is a smart device that is most commonly called a gateway. In fact, that is the main function of a router. The router is able to look at the addressing information in each packet and decide where it needs to be sent. Usually, you see routers set up between an internal network and an external network (the Internet). However, backbone providers and large companies use routers with muliple ports to split traffic between many different netowrks. Routers are also able to exchange information between different interface types (Ethernet, FDDI, ATM, TokenRing, etc.) and routing protocols (OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP, RIP, BGP, etc.). Confused yet? Kerry

A bridge usually is a device used to connect different types of network topologies or media, such as a coaxial cable networks with a catagory 5 networks, Ethernet topology to Token Ring topology, ect. It is a link layer device, therefore a Layer 2 device- not Layer 1. A router facillitates routing of network packets between other networks by keeping tables of devices address and where they are located at. A gateway can refer to a device such as a router, or it can be a server acting as a proxy. It's more of a term having to do with how or where a networked device communicates with other devices outside it's own network.

dont mean to be picky here, but a bridge is a layer 2 device. it is a repeater that extends the range of a network and a hub is a multi-port repeater. a hub segments a network into 2 collision domains and a switch is a multi-port bridge. the bridge and switch use MAC addressing.

let me make a small correction. a Bridge (not hub) segments a network into 2 collision domains and a switch is a multi-port bridge. the bridge and switch use MAC addressing.