Ethernet triangle?

ubersonic · 17 Jul 2015 at 09:24

Hey, simple scenario, two switches, each connected to a router, would the be any benefit to connecting them to each other? In my mind it should help with bottlenecking and load balancing as IIRC TCP/IP will take the shortest available route but it's been a while.

edscdk · 17 Jul 2015 at 09:25

yes plug both switches into each other... nothing bad will happen

bremen1874 · 17 Jul 2015 at 10:15

Tried it yet...?

23JMZ07 · 17 Jul 2015 at 11:13

I wouldn't advise

On Holiday · 17 Jul 2015 at 11:15

What can possibly go wrong

Beerbaron · 17 Jul 2015 at 11:22

Try it.

kayomani · 17 Jul 2015 at 11:29

I don't think the switches will be clever enough to take advantage as you are not routing. If your switches are rather dumb ones they'll not figure out there is a loop which will give some interesting results..

Phemo · 17 Jul 2015 at 13:08

Yes they'll cause a broadcast storm which will kill the network until the loop is removed. Unless it's a managed switch and has spanning tree enabled on it. So give it a go and see then watch as all your port activity lights go mental

Jim99 · 17 Jul 2015 at 13:28

More switches = more speed

Nismo · 17 Jul 2015 at 13:45

Did someone forget lesson 1 of NVQ Networking?

nutcase · 17 Jul 2015 at 14:28

I inadvertently did that at work once. Was interesting.

cuke2u · 17 Jul 2015 at 15:05

Our kids at school cause a loopback all the time and it is a pain to have to go around all the school trying to find it...

nutcase · 17 Jul 2015 at 17:36

A school should really have switches capable of loopback protection for that exact reason?

Caged · 18 Jul 2015 at 01:17

Don't buy bad switches and don't let bad admins look after them, problem solved. If you can't explain what RSTP does or what a BPDU is then you shouldn't be allowed to touch a network with more than 1 switch (or stack) in.

busbyuk · 18 Jul 2015 at 14:06

Are the ports on the router switch ports or routed ports?

If routed ports it won't cause an issue as they will be on separate broadcast domains. If switch ports then just unplug the second switch from the router and have it just hang off the first switch. This will stop any traffic having to go to the router if just destined for the local subnet.