Attempting to monitor home network with new managed switch

[monsterenergy22]

Good morning!

I am trying to monitor all of my home network traffic (wired and wireless) but am having some difficulties with connectivity. I will be using the switch to mirror ports once I get all the connectivity issues sorted out. I have AT&T U-Verse with the following hardware and all connected via Cat 6.

Switch = TP-Link TL-SG108E 8 Port Gigabit Managed Switch
Wireless router = TP-Link Archer AX20 (currently in wireless router mode)
AT&T Gateway = Arris BGW210-700 (currently set up with IP Passthrough)

My physical connectivity is below:

Internet >> AT&T Gateway >> Wireless Router >> Switch + Network Tap

Connectivity works fine here but I lose visibility into my wireless traffic since its upstream from the network tap.

I thought about switching my wireless router to AP mode but then I would lose the ability to set custom DNS servers.

What do you recommend for getting this setup working properly?

I appreciate any help and suggestions!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Connectivity works fine for wireless devices but none of my wired devices (all plugged into the switch) have any connectivity and cant get a DHCP address from the wireless router.

Of course this won't work because your wired devices aren't connected to your router's LAN (they are connected to the WAN side).

 

[monsterenergy22]

Of course this won't work because your wired devices aren't connected to your router's LAN (they are connected on the WAN side).

Which does make sense. Original post updated with new wording.

 

[ColinTaylor]

The traditional way to do this would be to insert the switch between the gateway and the router but leave the rest of the network alone. Then mirror the traffic to the desired port on the switch. Connected to this port would be a standalone (i.e. not connected to the LAN) monitoring device (e.g. PC, laptop, etc.). If the monitoring device needs connectivity to the LAN you would use a second network interface for that.

 

[monsterenergy22]

Thanks for the explanation. To make sure I understand - on the switch I would only have the uplink to ATT gateway, link to wireless router, and mirror/link to monitoring device?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks for the explanation. To make sure I understand - on the switch I would only have the uplink to ATT gateway, link to wireless router, and mirror/link to monitoring device?

Correct. Although I will qualify that by saying I'm talking in general as I have no personal experience with TP-Link devices (I'm more familiar with Cisco stuff).

 

[monsterenergy22]

Understandable, I am hoping it will apply/work the same here.

With this set up, will I run into any problems plugging an unmanaged switch into the wireless router to give me some additional ports?

 

[ColinTaylor]

With this set up, will I run into any problems plugging an unmanaged switch into the wireless router to give me some additional ports?

On the LAN side? That should be no problem.

 

[monsterenergy22]

Awesome, thank you!

I think the only remaining question I have is around 2 ATT uverse IPTV boxes. They need IGMP Proxying to work and are working fine at the moment but are also plugged into the managed switch. My wireless router does support IGMP proxying/snooping so I imagine I should be ok plugging them in directly to the wireless router?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I've not used IPTV services but I believe they use VLANs. So I'd guess it would work provided the switches tagging and VLAN ID's were set correctly.