I have a small network cabinet my apartment had installed. Inside the cabinet are ethernet plugs. One of the ethernet plugs is a live internet connection from my ISP and the other ethernet plugs are connections that lead into the bedrooms.
I have a managed network switch TP-Link model TL-SG108E. I would like to use my router to receive internet through the managed switch and have the devices connected to the switch receive IP addresses from the router (so basically use my router as DHCP).
Is this configuration possible? The closet is too far from the other rooms to be an efficient wireless AP, so ideally, I would like to setup the router in the living room.
Is there some way I can configure the managed switch to do what I want? Do VLANs function this way? Could I setup some kind of VLAN interface between ISP/internet ethernet port and my router? Or would setting up a static internet IP on the router help me out in any way?
I am a newbie when it comes to networking (a look at my profile and you can see my progression with working with OpenWRT/Linux). I am hoping someone can help me out with this -- any help would be appreciated.
If there is only one cable running from the cabinet to the living room, then vlans is the only way.
Assign one vlan for the lan, e.g 1, and one for the wan, e.g 2.
The port to the waveG must be untagged on vlan2 and pvid 2.
The ports to bedrooms must be untagged on vlan1 and pvid 1.
The port to living room must be tagged on vlans 1 and 2.
OpenWrt must have the uplink, e.g physical wan port, tagged on vlans 1 and 2. Lan ports untagged on vlan 1.
this SG108E is .... at least problematic. You could not turn off Vlan1 from ports, so it is always there on all ports untagged.
And Vlan2 is problematic in OpenWRT
so maybe better solution will be something like Vlan10 & Vlan20
I think I may have found a solution to my own issue. I am going to return the TL-SG108E network switch, and not use it. The switch is literal garbage, from my experience, and what others are saying on this thread/forum.
Instead, I am happy to announce an epic solution! I thought of this myself, too:
I am going to use a TP-Link model TL-R605 -- a multiwan VPN router. It's essentially just a wired gigabit router (with no wifi). This should provide me with a single IP (from my ISP) and also give me the private network (DHCP) I need.
Oddly enough, I am paying for two ISPs: WaveG and Comcast. I pay $50 flat montly for WaveG symmetrical gigabit fiber and $90 for 400mbps down/30mbps up on Comcast. Comcast is literal dog turd, but I can't cancel it as we have Xfinity Mobile and any cancelation to home internet means $30 increase in fees for phones... They try to strong arm you to stay with them, it's BS. So I decided to just pay $50 more for WaveG, never been happier.
I intend to use the multiwan capabilities this router has (which I didn't even need!) and try to get the most out of my current situation. Does anyone any cool things I can do with this TL-R605? Can I install OpenWRT on it?
I will receive my wired router tomorrow and will update this thread when I've resolved my issue.
Switching to a TP-Link wired router [TL-R605] resolved my issues. This benefitted me in two ways as I was able to setup my home network exactly as pictured in my diagram AND I was able to utilize the second WAN connection I had available through the TL-R605's load balancing capabilities.
My setup with the home network is configured as follows (for anyone looking to mirror my setup):
The TL-R605 is the main router for my network, the DHCP server, and the firewall.
The WRT32x (OpenWRT Router) is connected to the main router via lan, setup in 'Dumb AP' mode, and is on the same subnet as the wired router. The firewall, dnsmasq, odhcpd services are disabled on this device as there are no need for them when OpenWRT is in this mode. It runs on the LAN interface as 'static' and has DHCP server disabled.
The two LAN ports coming from the wall (as shown in diagram) are connected to the main router. This allows my wife and I's two computers, used for work, to utilize both WAN connections and get the maximum throughput since they don't have to be connected to another router or switch.
The devices (wireless or wired via LAN ports) connected to the OpenWRT 'Dumb AP' atomically get an IP assigned to them by main router. This makes port forwarding and setting up traffic rules a breeze since we do not have to use OpenWRT's firewall or configure it to have a different subnet. Most devices on my network (that are not shown on diagram) connect via the OpenWRT router and since we can still utilize packages installed on OpenWRT, things like: AdBlock, SQM, miniDLNA, etc., we are able to use OpenWRT to it's full potential.
I think @trendy may have been correct on how I could use a managed switch for the configuration I wanted, but after failing to configure the switch and failing to understand how VLANs worked, I gave up and moved towards this solution that sounded a little easier.
Again, I would like to thank the OpenWRT community for always teaching me new things and helping me think about how I can solve networking/linux issues.
