Wireless Security: Know It All

Chapter 3. Wireless Network Physical Architecture

3.1. Wired Network Topologies—A Refresher

The topology of a wired network refers to the physical configuration of links between networked devices or nodes, where each node may be a computer, an end-user device such as a printer or scanner, or some other piece of network hardware such as a hub, switch or router.

The building block from which different topologies are constructed is the simple point-to-point wired link between two nodes, shown in Figure 3.1. Repeating this element results in the two simplest topologies for wired networks—bus and ring.

Figure 3.1. Point-to-point, bus and ring topologies

For the ring topology, there are two possible variants depending on whether the inter-node links ...