Router questions

[RBShooter]

I'm ditching my 6 yr old Frontier (Verizon) Fios router for a TP-Link AX5400 WiFi 6 Router (Archer AX73), and I may decide to move the router to the other side of a wall.

I have a few Cat 6 lines plugged in to the ethernet ports on the back of the existing router, I believe a 4-port. My question is, with the new router, can I just use a switch (or hub?? not sure what's the right terminology??) like this TP-Link TL-SG108 | 8 Port Gigabit Unmanaged Ethernet Network Switch in place of where the existing router is, then plug the one ethernet cable from that switch in to one of the 4 ethernet ports on the new router, without suffering from any noticeable loss of performance? I imagine the switch essentially does the same thing the router does with respect to handling the data flows from the various cat 6 runs?

[bigmike82]

then plug the one ethernet cable from that switch in to one of the 4 ethernet ports on the new router, without suffering from any noticeable loss of performance?

Yes. That's basically what the four ports in the router are, just integrated. You may notice performance issues if you run cables that are too long (100M plus), or if the cables have bad connectors.

[RBShooter]

Yes. That's basically what the four ports in the router are, just integrated. You may notice performance issues if you run cables that are too long (100M plus), or if the cables have bad connectors.

OK, cool, that's what I was hoping to hear. No 100M runs, maybe only 40-50 ft long at the most here in my house. Thanks!

[ibanezfoo]

I'm ditching my 6 yr old Frontier (Verizon) Fios router for a TP-Link AX5400 WiFi 6 Router (Archer AX73), and I may decide to move the router to the other side of a wall.

I have a few Cat 6 lines plugged in to the ethernet ports on the back of the existing router, I believe a 4-port. My question is, with the new router, can I just use a switch (or hub?? not sure what's the right terminology??) like this TP-Link TL-SG108 | 8 Port Gigabit Unmanaged Ethernet Network Switch in place of where the existing router is, then plug the one ethernet cable from that switch in to one of the 4 ethernet ports on the new router, without suffering from any noticeable loss of performance? I imagine the switch essentially does the same thing the router does with respect to handling the data flows from the various cat 6 runs?

[the86d]

With gigabit and home use, you will never notice any lag with multiple switches,
IF you are getting 1Gbps links, not 100Mbit, or 10Mbit.

I used to use a 2nd router as an AP, and just disabled DHCP and let primary router do all the DHCP, so 2 routers with 2 APs, one handing out martian addresses (for most routers... nothing in the WAN on the secondary AP router, if you do this, some Newer D-links have issues with this and required Windows to setup for some weird reason)...

[Robotron2k84]

If you start to tag VLANs, use STP and create more than 4 bridges on a consumer-grade router, you will notice a difference in performance. Those Broadcom switches in the hardware (even if not BCM) are host managed and anything more than shortcut forwarding relies on the host CPU.

As long as you are just adding bridges, the proper term for a device that connects multiple networks, without inspection or routing, then you are good to go, sans a bridging loop that requires STP.

[ibanezfoo]

If you start to tag VLANs, use STP and create more than 4 bridges on a consumer-grade router, you will notice a difference in performance. Those Broadcom switches in the hardware (even if not BCM) are host managed and anything more than shortcut forwarding relies on the host CPU.

As long as you are just adding bridges, the proper term for a device that connects multiple networks, without inspection or routing, then you are good to go, sans a bridging loop that requires STP.

With the exception of you or me, nobody at home is going to be setting up all these VLANs with STP and all that.

[RBShooter]

With the exception of you or me, nobody at home is going to be setting up all these VLANs with STP and all that.

yeah, keep it dumbed down to my level, please lol .

I'm thinking of putting the swithc up in the attic for simplification.
Gets about 120 degrees up there in the summer.
Was thinking of getting this https://www.antaira.com/products/10-...NX-1002C-SFP-T , instead of using that TPI switch I mentioned in OP. Way more expensive, but I don't want to risk burning my house down because of an overheated electrical item. This one is designed to work up to 158 degrees.

[Robotron2k84]

With the exception of you or me, nobody at home is going to be setting up all these VLANs with STP and all that.

You’d be surprised. Others I’ve seen plug two cables into two ports each on the same two switches, thinking if one cable goes bad, then two will save me. Not knowing about trunking, STP or bonding, and then wondering why their network crashes or switch blows up (figuratively).

Technology can’t prevent every user from buggering themselves on occasion, which is why the home gear is generally so limited.

[the86d]

WOW...

[ibanezfoo]

Agreed, but most non nerd types have no idea what any of that means.

I don't recall even seeing any spanning tree or trunking or anything on the cheap home routers' default firmware.

[MrFancyPants]

If you start to tag VLANs, use STP and create more than 4 bridges on a consumer-grade router, you will notice a difference in performance. Those Broadcom switches in the hardware (even if not BCM) are host managed and anything more than shortcut forwarding relies on the host CPU.

As long as you are just adding bridges, the proper term for a device that connects multiple networks, without inspection or routing, then you are good to go, sans a bridging loop that requires STP.

That's way over the top given what the OP asked, lol. He likely just needs more than the built in 4 ports on the TP Link. I don't think he's engineering a segmented enterprise network at home.

With the exception of you or me, nobody at home is going to be setting up all these VLANs with STP and all that.

Oh contrare, my home network is behind a Cisco ASA and 3750-X for core switching, with downstream L2 switches, home run APs and several VLANs for various purposes, including a DMZ for internet facing systems. Overkill? Absolutely, but after being a network engineer for so long I can't not do it, even at home.

I don't recall even seeing any spanning tree or trunking or anything on the cheap home routers' default firmware.

All consumer grade routers are incredibly "dumb" when compared to their enterprise grade counterparts with not nearly as many features. Hence why I'm running a Cisco ASA at home, but the caveat is you have to have the knowledge to configure and maintain it. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend anybody buy a consumer grade router. They're pretty much garbage and very insecure.

[Cowboy T]

With the exception of you or me, nobody at home is going to be setting up all these VLANs with STP and all that.

Or me. But then, I'm a network engineer, so I do that VLAN STP stuff. :-) I'm running Cisco Cat 3750's and Juniper EX4200's in my home.

OP, for most people, unless you're doing the kind of stuff that I do, then you'll be fine with your switch hooked up to your new router. Actually, that's kind of how I do it, just with different gear. I use an OpenBSD router/firewall, with the switch(es) behind it. The connection between the router/firewall and the head switch is a Gig-E connection. Mine is simply a "bigger" version of what you're thinking about; same basic design.

The bottleneck, with this type of setup, is going to be your Internet connection. Therefore, unless you're actually buying a pipe greater than 1Gbps from your provider (and that's a fair amount of money per month), you won't see any benefit from beefing up your pipe between your internal switch and your router's internal interface. So, communication between your various boxes at home should be as fast as that switch can handle.

Basically, you should be fine with your setup. The "TP-Link TL-SG108 | 8 Port Gigabit Unmanaged Ethernet Network Switch" should serve you just fine.

One last thing: people telling the OP to get enterprise gear, well, that's true if you're like me and you're savvy with this stuff. But most people aren't ready to learn Cisco IOS or Juniper JUNOS, and I consider the Web GUI's for both Cisco and Juniper to be Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Same goes for Cisco ASA's or Juniper SSG/SRX's; good stuff, but it's overkill for most people. If you know how to do that, you really should just build your own OpenBSD-based firewall and thus get something *really* good.

So, it is probably better for the OP to get a regular ol' "dumb" Gig-E switch from Fry's or Micro Center or similar.

[Robotron2k84]

…

All consumer grade routers are incredibly "dumb" when compared to their enterprise grade counterparts with not nearly as many features. Hence why I'm running a Cisco ASA at home, but the caveat is you have to have the knowledge to configure and maintain it. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend anybody buy a consumer grade router. They're pretty much garbage and very insecure.

Feature for feature the “dumb” routers are a complete Linux system that can meet every requirement that the ASA can, and beyond. They are all (including the ASA) really stripped PCs with limited RAM and some quantity of network ports. The ASA is built around the Celeron/Atom/i3, at least used to be, with nothing more than a few intel GbE ports and a custom ROM.

The disadvantage of the home gear has more to do with expectations, as none actually utilize a PCI bus, but rather just USB internally, and that the target audience doesn’t have the patience for a technical interface, generally, and the vendor tries to carve out a few known scenarios to support, poorly. Underneath, they are all reference platforms from Broadcom, Qualcomm, Mediatek, Intel, etc. The same players that design the hardware for Cisco gear.

Once you move to the command shell and to more advanced firmwares, and increased quality of code, I find iptables administration a whole heck of a lot easier than ASAs I’ve managed in the past. Scripting alone makes Linux so much more useful than the closed-platform Cisco software. I can run snort and wireshark on the router and turn it into a full fledged IDS, support 5 different VPN endpoint protocols simultaneously, host a complete LAMP stack for authentication and run LDAP and RADIUS there as well. Concurrently, with near Gig throughput (non-VPN) off a couple of measly ARMv7 cores and for $200.

My oldest router, a lowly 500MHz MIPS CPU serving the VIPs for mail and web has been in continuous operation, with seasonal reboots, and at last count, a firewall with over 20K entries, for over a decade. Throughput is not current (100Mb/s), so it will be retired this year, but I’ve had several ASAs fail within the span of a few years when their memory modules would flake out. The real enterprise gear from Cisco is still hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get 100% silicon switching and Terabit fabrics, plus redundancy. The ASA is a SMB device, barely able to cluster active-active.

Why I don’t do a *BSD or full PC firewall / edge has more to do with my commit rate, and the fact that the consumer hardware runs at 1/4 the power and I don’t need a separate AP on top of that.

To each their own.

.

[ibanezfoo]

Average Joe home users don't care about any of that, nor even know what it means. Yes I used to drag ASAs home, some Junper/Netscreen stuff, Aruba, some garbage Adtran, and made my own Linux routers out of old PCs, slapped myself on the BGP, etc then one day decided whats the point? I get to play with that crap all day at work. Slapped a cheap DDWRT thing together with some mesh pucks and called it a day. Sure I have some VLANs for security and crap like that but really nobody who isn't a nerd or works with this stuff cares. Its like a nerd big dick contest. Nobody cares except nerds.