Can one build a switch or bridge with multiple network cards? Standard switches will not do what I need.
I saw a posting somewhere a few days ago (might have been years old from an unrelated search) but I can't find it now. The standard answer was "go buy a switch on Ebay, its cheaper". I agree that would be true for a pure ethernet switch. Actually, I think the original poster of that thread wanted to do additional address filtering he thought was not available on inexpensive commercial swtiches.
However, I would like to make a bridge between token ring and ethernet. The bridge currently being advertised on Ebay has no ethernet module (it's half a bridge that only goes halfway across the gulf). Buying one elsewhere would be several hundred dollars. I have ethernet and token ring cards and computers I could load linux onto.
Maybe could use the same machine for RARP and TFTP which I need to set up too, since my linux firewall doesn't supply those services. Yes, I could add them to the present firewall, but I was hoping to move to a CDROM/Floppy firewall and get rid of the hard disk in that system.
About 6 months ago I saw a listing on ebay for a cable adapter, plug it into a TR hub and plug an ethernet computer into it. Once I got my token ring equipment and hub, I could not find it any more. If anybody can point me to an inexpensive divice like that, and if it would work (maybe it has its own MAC address and truly only works for one ethernet computer)