Ethernet over FireWire: How?

Joel rees at ddcom.co.jp
Mon May 16 20:22:54 PDT 2005


> My lab bought a new computer, which I have to
> configure as a dual-homed/gateway, sambaserver,
> http-server, etc. This I know how to do.
> I'm using 5.4-RELEASE for this computer.
> 
> Among many things 'built-in' on the motherboard,
> it has this also built-in:
>  skc0: Marvell Yukon Lite Gigabit Ethernet
>  firewire0: <IEEE1394(FireWire) bus> on fwohci0
>  fwe0: <Ethernet over FireWire>
> 
> (these lines are from dmesg output)
> 
> The 'skc0' has the regular ethernet socket (RJ-45
> connector), so I can use that as one ethernet
> connection.
> 
> Can I use the firewire/ethernet as the second
> ethernet card on this computer. If yes, how?
> I'm not at all familiar with firewire stuff.
> The lines in the dmesg output actually triggered
> this question.
> 
> Can someone give me a layman's answer to how I can
> use the firewire as the second ethernet card?
> The backside of the computer has a socket labeled
> '1394', but this is not a RJ-45 connector.

That would be extremely odd if it were an RJ-45. Firewire (IEEE1394)
uses two or three physical connectors, but none of them are RJ-45.

> Do I
> need a converter cable from firewire to RJ-45?

You don't really want a converter. The point of ethernet over firewire
was to allow two computers (or other devices, like high-end video) to
route ethernet over a firewire cable. 

> BTW: what are the advantages and disadvantages of
> using this firewire thing as ethernet device?

I've seen USB "modems" (telco network to USB), haven't seen any Firewire
modems, which seems a little odd, since USB and IP are not a good fit,
and since Firewire includes IP over firewire in the standard. I guess
that's just because iNTEL decided to put USB (an iNTEL technology) into
their chipsets, so USB is ubiquitous.

Just for fun, I searched on google for "firewire ethernet" and found
this: 

<http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/28/0831203&mode=thread>

It may answer some of your questions.

Probably, the only way this would help in your case is if you had two
boxes with firewire on two separate but physically close networks and
wanted to use those two boxes as a bridge between the two networks.

--
Joel Rees   <rees at ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc.   株式会社デジコム
Kobe, Japan   +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **



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