VLAN and switch question

APM · 2 May 2017 at 19:42

Say you have a network using 2 managed switches with VLANs set up on them,could you then add an unmanaged switch off a VLAN port on one of the managed switches by using the MAC address of the dumb switch as the destination address for the tags/packets from the VLAN?

Clearly the VLAN would terminate at the dumb switch but would all the traffic from that dumb switch be able to run through the VLAN created by the smart switch?

Hope that makes sense.

Caged · 2 May 2017 at 19:55

You'd just set the switch port up as an access port on the VLAN you wanted everything to be on. At least I think that's what you're asking - you're not trying to have more than 1 VLAN accessible to the devices that plug into this switch, are you?

bremen1874 · 2 May 2017 at 20:26

APM said:
...using the MAC address of the dumb switch as the destination address for the tags/packets from the VLAN?

An unmanaged switch won't have a MAC address to use

APM · 2 May 2017 at 22:35

Caged said:
You'd just set the switch port up as an access port on the VLAN you wanted everything to be on. At least I think that's what you're asking - you're not trying to have more than 1 VLAN accessible to the devices that plug into this switch, are you?

No,the final dumb switch would be for all the devices on that vlan to use and would be only for the kit on that network.

Set the port on the smart switch as a vlan port then if that port runs to a pc,a tv,a switch or whatever then all that traffic is on that vlan and if that port does go to a dumb switch then any traffic from the dumb switch is on the vlan?

That could make setting up a more private and secure network substantially cheaper.

So,if I have it correctly, a tag based vlan will function via the use of a managed switch (or two) and the last managed switch will have a port dedicated to a vlan that can then cable up to a dumb switch and all the traffic from that dumb switch will be tagged by the managed switches for transport to the router?

Forgive me if I repeat myself.

APM · 2 May 2017 at 22:37

bremen1874 said:
An unmanaged switch won't have a MAC address to use

If that is so then how does my Windows home network identify a switch as a switch?

I thought switches worked at level 2 or MAC address?

bremen1874 · 2 May 2017 at 23:09

Unmanaged switches aren't endpoints and don't need or have MAC addresses. They're a transparent device as far as the rest of the network is concerned.

The switch will use the MAC addresses of the connected endpoint(s) to workout what's connected to each of its ports and direct traffic in the correct direction.

That's my understanding anyway.

APM · 3 May 2017 at 22:56

Thank you gents.

neodude · 5 May 2017 at 10:15

Everything connected to the unmanaged switch will be on the same VLAN. You just need to set the port on the managed switch to untag outgoing packets and tag incoming packets.