Some question about switch and guest network management

[XmaD]

Hi guys,

It's been 3 month I've successfully installed the 1.6.2 on my TL-WN1043ND v1 and now I'm searching for some suggestion to improve my experience with it.

1. I would like to expand my wired cable and so I'm on to buy a switch, I'm looking for something like the TL-SG1008D which is gigabit and would love it, but here is my question: if I connect the pc 1 and 3 to the 1043 and the pc 2 and 4 to the 1008 will the two link 1-3 and 2-4 have half speed? (if not I'll go with the TL-SG1016 and connect the cable LAN on it)

2. If I will use the unmanaged switch can I monitor the added link with the QoS of the 1043? (I assume it should work since the switch will have the same DHCP server.)

3. I've assigned static routing to all my devices, so the DHCP will serve only my guests devices when needed, but I would like to isolate them from mine, and also would like to QoS them with a proper class but I can't figure out how apply a rule to a range of destination IPs. Can you help me with this or propose a workaround?

Thank you for the help,
appreciating a lot what you're doing here.

[Lantis]

I'll try to answer everything in order

1) I'm not sure I understand your question fully so I'm going to talk about my own setup and how it works.
I'm using a Netgear JGS524 24 Port Gigabit Switch. It is connected to LAN port 1 of my WNDR3800 and that link is negotiated at 1Gbps. Every computer connected to the switch will negotiate at the fastest speed it can between itself and the switch.
For the average home user, 2 computers on the switch communicating with each other could not saturate the link.
Your bottleneck is the 1Gbps link between the switch and the router. If you can generate enough traffic that is destined to go to the router (or a computer connected directly to it, or the internet) you can saturate this connection. I think you'd really struggle though haha that's a lot of traffic.

I personally think it'd be a cleaner implantation to get the bigger switch and put everyone on it. I'll post a picture of my network cabinet at home at the end for a bit of jealousy if you like

2) absolutely. Everything through the switch as long as it's managed by the DHCP server on the router will be monitorable. A managed switch is an expensive and unnecessary addition (unless you have very particular needs like monitoring traffic between two computers).

3) read post 1 in this thread. It answers your question. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6807
Unfortunately I don't think there is a *neat* work around (yet).
You could do a quota with a "zero limit" (very small so it triggers instantly) which then drops all the users into a QOS class of your choosing. You would apply this quota to "all users without another quota" or something like that.
It's a messy workaround but I think it would achieve what you're after.

[Lantis]

My network cabinet
That red cable disappears up out of the cabinet and into LAN 1 of my Gargoyle router.

[XmaD]

Thank you for the speedy answers Lantis

1. This was the answer I was searching for! I think I'll go with the 16 port switch (or maybe 24, you never knows )

2. Ok, I was thinking the same but needed a confirmation.

3. Thank you for the tip, I think I'll use another router to use as client+ap and use it to isolate it's network from mine, and also checking QoS it's the more painless solution

ps: about your cabinet: what's the 3 blackboxes you've attached to the blue cables and the one at the top??? it's a pretty huge setup as home slution

[Lantis]

You are welcome

I think for the minimal extra cost, the extra ports will be worthwhile for future expansion. Depends what your application is.

So you can see that the ends of the cables from the switch go into the black boxes. Then above those are wiring panels where very long cables are manually wired and distributed throughout the house. 1 LAN port in every room in general (with a couple rooms having extras). i believe the black panels are called "Patch panels"
The panel at the top with the yellow cables attached to it are phone distribution panels, and conveniently where the first phone port in the house is located, so i can patch my ADSL filter straight into it.
The silver boxes to the right are video distribution boxes, so that you can put a dvd in one room, and watch it (and the associated audio) in any room.

[XmaD]

I belive I'm building the same structure in my own network, the few differences are that I didn't planned to use a patch panel (which can be useful) but now I think I can change my mind and also I plan to she the BlueRay reader source trough the lan and stream to any other TV (or PC whatever).

Thanks again