I do not know much about routing, but a co-worker said that you could not send information between two ip sub nets with a switch. After thinking about this, is it possible to connect both sub nets to the same switch and using net bios send information between the two? If not why? Please be kind I new to routing. Regard Whut

TCP/IP networking is hierarchial: meaning traffic goes UP to the DHCP server through switches and hubs and then back DOWN to the clients. Once a TCP/IP session has been established it's locked in between the client and server. Traffic from foreign networks is automatically rejected by the LAN unless it comes in through the WAN port of the server and is not in the same netblock as the LAN. What this means is if you connect 2 networks through the LAN ports of a switch nothing happens: The switch sends packets from the LAN ports to its WAN port and back down again from the server. The LAN ports don't talk to each other. If you connect one network to the WAN port it either rejects the "foreign" packets because it's not expecting packets with this IP Address from that subnet or, if a client on that subnet is using that IP Address the packets collide and both are locked out.

To have two subnets communicate you need a router to translate between the two. Some will setup a server with two nic cards and using RRAS will connect the two subnets. The two subnets can not communicate between themselves if no router exists. Layer 2 switches can not route. Netbios can not talk directly to tcp/ip. Its like latin talking to mongolian. Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

No, because NetBIOS is "non-routable" so you can't send information between the two subnets using NetBIOS alone...to route information between the subnets using NetBIOS you have to "enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP"...that will allow NetBIOS to send information between the two subnets...you would also want to probably set up WINS (windows internet services)..that's what associates NetBIOS to IP addressing. D

Thanks guys. That clears thing up. Whut