What is a Media Attachment Unit?
A media attachment unit (MAU) is a device that attaches computers to an Ethernet backbone. The device uses the attachment unit interface port on a computer to connect one or more stations to an Ethernet network that do not have Ethernet network cards installed in them. The common terminology seen when referring to a MAU is a token ring. The computers on the token ring are daisy chained together and each section of the network is connected to a MAU. The MAU is then connected to the Ethernet LAN. The media attachment unit is used to exchange data or tokens between computers connected to it and other computers connected to the LAN via Ethernet. The token portion of a token ring network describes the method used to detect collisions between data transmissions and retries the submissions to ensure that data is delivered. A media attachment unit can be built into computers or can be a separate device which many computers are connected to. The best way to understand how a network using a medi
