the good old CAM table Chris ;)

It would work just make the sure the CAM table doesnt fill up.

Or just create a fully meshed network, configuration brain freeze.

yeah defo, but you could have a series setup and waste 4 ports per switch connecting to each switch either side. But I don't know why you would do that and not just do a star configuration so you have a 'core' and access switches.

Am i right in thinking a star config utilises two ports between each switch whereas a series setup requires only a single port?

zing motherfucker zing

Have a look at STP (Spanning Tree Protocol). IIRC, essentially (one of) the switches will block a port preventing a loopback but will enable it if there is path failure on the primary connection.

Edit - FFS Willay :lol:

[Edited on 11-06-2012 by Dom]

Most switches have a type of Spanning Tree enabled (please specify switch model) and this is used to detect loops. When a loop is detected it puts one of the ports in a blocking state and the other port into a forwarding state, to ensure there are no loops.

Always good to have two ports on each switch connecting to another so you have a form of redundancy.

Why are like linked in series and not in a more traditional 'star' configuration?

That port on the switches will be configured specifically for redundancy, in a normal unmanaged switch that would cause problems.

Im just looking at an ethernet drawing which shows 5 ethernet swtiches in series and the last ethernet switch then joins back up with the first.

Is this even possible? I thought if you created a loop, this would normally break the network.

All switches are 'managed' type though, not sure if this made a difference.

The reason for the above setup is for redundancy, theres no large amounts of data moving moved around.