Bridge Operation

Building a Routing table
A bridge will build a routing table in memory.

When the bridge is initialized the routing table is empty.

However information is constantly being added as the bridge listens to connected segments.

The bridge can enter a particular hardware address against a port number in the routing table by examining the source hardware address on frames and noting the port that received the frame.

Entries are removed from the table after some time to ensure the information remains current.