A common use of bridges is to connect two(or more) distant LANs. For example, a company might have plants in several cities, each with its own LAN. Ideally, all the LANs should be interconnected, so the complete system acts like one large LAN. This goal can be achieved by putting abridge on each LAN and connecting the bridges pair wise with point to point lines. Various protocols can be used on the point to point lines. One possibility is to choose some standard point-to-point data link protocol such as PPP, putting complete MAC frames in the payload field.
This strategy works best if all the LANs are identical, and the only problem is getting frames to the correct LAN. Another option is to strip off the MAC header and trailer at the Source Bridge and header and tailor can than be generated at the designation bridge. A disadvantage of this approaches that the checksum that arrives at the destination host is not the one computed by the source host, so errors caused by bad bits in a bridge's memory may not be detected.
This strategy works best if all the LANs are identical, and the only problem is getting frames to the correct LAN. Another option is to strip off the MAC header and trailer at the Source Bridge and header and tailor can than be generated at the designation bridge. A disadvantage of this approaches that the checksum that arrives at the destination host is not the one computed by the source host, so errors caused by bad bits in a bridge's memory may not be detected.
