Bridging

A network bridge loosely defined is a device which joins two seperate networks together. Technically, an Ethernet Hub/Switch could be considered a form of a network bridge.

When we talk about bridging with Star-OS it usually entails joining one wireless card to either an ethernet card or another wireless card on the same hardware. For example, a two-port WRAP or WAR board.

The only time you want to use Star-OS in a bridge scenario would be when you're only using it to connect directly to a router, say a Cisco or a PC-based *BSD or Linux router. This scenario, when drawn up would look something like:

[Router] --------- [Star-OS Bridge] ---------- [Router]

Anytime the network includes more than three nodes as shown above, you need to switch to a Routed Network. The consequences of not doing so aren't immediately obvious, but as your network grows you'll notice growing instability and a lack of network performances/throughput. The end result will be either a switch to a routed network or taking the network down, and so it's much easier to plan to be a routed network ahead of time.