A common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so that all segments of the LAN can see all
packets.
A passive hub serves simply as a conduit for the data, enabling it
to go from one device (or segment) to another. So-called intelligent hubs include additional features that
enables an administrator to monitor the traffic passing through the hub and to configure each port in the hub. Intelligent hubs are
also called manageable hubs.
A third type of hub, called a switching hub, actually reads the destination address of each packet and then forwards the packet to the correct
port.
