Home Network Design help with L3 Switch

[coxhaus]

It’s running on my laptop connected to the main WiFi on the WAP581.

I thought you had this running on the other thread. I always run my FindIT on an access port connected with a wire on VLAN1. Maybe reinstall. It might be using an old network IP.

 

[trpltongue]

It was running perfectly when I had the laptop connected via wire directly to the switch on an access port.

In the long run, I will run it from my server directly connected to the switch, but for now I’m running the Cisco gear in parallel to my ATT network and using my laptop and iPhone to test.

 

[coxhaus]

You may end up with Wi-Fi channel problems running dual Wi-Fi networks. Do you have a Wi-Fi channel scanner you can use to setup non-overlapping channels like inSSIDer?

I thought you were using passthrough on the AT&T modem?

 

[trpltongue]

I have disabled the 2.4Ghz on the Cisco WAP for now and disabled the 5ghz on the att WiFi.

I am running the att gateway in passthrough mode, but dhcp is still enabled on the att gateway and all my other gear is still connected to it. Apparently the gateway runs in a bit of a dual mode where it still executes routing functions for devices connected to it but also passes the external IP address through to the Cisco router.

 

[coxhaus]

I have bought a SG350 switch with POE+. I decided to try the 10 port model since this what a lot people on this forum might buy. I will see if I like it vs my old SG300-28 model.

 

[trpltongue]

Awesome!

I’ve been running for a few days now without any issue. I had a bit of a hiccup with the ATT gateway and needed to reboot it, but it’s been running for a week now in parallel with the normal system with no issues.

I’ve been swamped with work lately so I haven’t had a chance to think through VLANs yet, but that’ll be next on the list. The guest VLAN seems to be working perfectly as well so far.

 

[coxhaus]

I thought I would add this for using routing protocols and L3 switches. If you buy the higher end Cisco small business switches like the SG550 L3 switches you can use routing protocols. The routing protocols take away having to manually setup all the static routes. You turn on routing protocols and they resolve routing issues between devices like routers and L3 switches. Here is a link for setting them up.

 

[trpltongue]

Thanks! I’m going to try to take some time to understand that video

 

[coxhaus]

You would need a SG550 switch. The SG350 switches only have static routing no protocol routing. I added the video for fun incase someone else had the higher end switch that was reading this thread.

 

[trpltongue]

So.....back again finally I've been running this setup in parallel to my ATT setup and it's been working well. Yesterday I moved all the hardwired devices over to the Cisco stack and I'm slowly working through the wireless devices.

As a quick reminder, I've got the Cisco RV340 running at 192.168.10.1 downstream of my ATT modem, and the SG-350 at 192.168.10.254 downstream of the Cisco RV340.
The SG-350 is doing all of the DHCP work and Vlan stuff.
Vlan 1 is setup as the Main Vlan at 192.168.10.254 Subnet 255.255.255.0 with IP pool 192.168.10.21-253
Vlan 2 is setup as the Guest Vlan at 192.168.20.254 Subnet 255.255.255.0 with IP pool 192.168.20.21-253

I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions, but 2 things are jumping out at me right now.
1) when I connect my wired devices, windows show the network name as some generic "Network 4". I'd prefer to have a more descriptive name than that lol, but I don't know where or how to change that in the Cisco stack, if it's even possible at all.

2) I setup static hosts on the SG-350 for most of my hardwired machines on VLAN 1 using the following:
IP Address: "192.168.10.x", Host Name: "PC Name", Network Mask: "255.255.255.0", Client identifier: "xxxxxxxxx", everything else left to default.
They connect to each other and to the hard wired devices, but not the internet. Not sure what's up with that?

That's it for now, if anyone has any insight, I'd really appreciate it!

 

[coxhaus]

I don't remember what wireless devices you have but the Network 4 is a Windows thing not a Cisco thing.

I am not sure what you mean on static hosts. I assume you mean DHCP reservations? Static and reservations are different in static is just a hard coded IP address on a device and a reservation is DHCP assigning the same IP address to a device. So are hardware machines being assigned the same IP address by DHCP when you reboot them? Sounds like they can ping each other but no gateway? Can you ping the router? The default gateway for each client should be 192.168.10.254 in vlan1. The default gateway for each client on vlan2 is 192.168.20.254 The default gateway for SG350 switch should be the RV340 router, 192.168.10.1

Before you start make sure you have the new firmware on your router and switch. The router needs to be configured from scratch after the new firmware is installed per Cisco.

 

[trpltongue]

I'm running WAP581's. I wasn't sure if there was some way to define the network name being broadcast, but sounds like it's a windows thing I can't change. The wifi devices obviously pick up the SSID, but the wired devices just get a boring generic name

Yeah, I'm trying to assign DHCP reservations, which I *think* is done in the "static hosts" section of the DHCP table in the SG-350 (picture below). I deleted the static host entry here as they weren't working, but this is where I entered them.

I did update the router, switch, and WAP firmware, but didn't do a complete reconfiguration....I haven't noticed any issues though aside from this. I can try to reset the router and work my way through each of the screens again

 

[coxhaus]

The switch and wireless does not need to be done from scratch but the RV340 does this time.

So does it work if you don't set statics in DHCP? I am trying to remember where we are as I don't remember, it has been too long.

I can show you what a SG300 screen for setting reservations looks like if you want? It is different than your SG350 screen. They have improved it in the SG350 switch. I bought a SG350X but I have not set it up yet. I did put the latest firmware on my SG350X-24 switch. My wife is on every day now and does not want the network to be down. Besides I have been working in the garden now days on and off. I only get rainy days off right now.

PS
How loud is your switch? I have been avoiding the POE models as I thought they had loud fans. I bought a SG350X-24 and it even has a fan which I don't like. Somebody on eBay is selling quieter fans which I might try. You might want to check them out on eBay if the noise bothers you. It probably voids the warranty though.

 

[trpltongue]

The switch and wireless does not need to be done from scratch but the RV340 does this time.

So does it work if you don't set statics in DHCP? I am trying to remember where we are as I don't remember, it has been too long.

I can show you what a SG300 screen for setting reservations looks like if you want? It is different than your SG350 screen. They have improved it in the SG350 switch. I bought a SG350X but I have not set it up yet. My wife is on every day now and does not want the network to be down. Besides I have been working in the garden now days on and off. I only get rainy days off right now.

PS
How loud is your switch? I have been avoiding the POE models as I thought they had loud fans. I bought a SG350X-24 and it even has a fan which I don't like. Somebody on eBay is selling quieter fans which I might try. You might want to check them out on eBay if the noise bothers you.

Everything is working fine if I don't set a static IP. We got the main VLAN1 and guest VLAN2 complete. It's been running perfectly. I'm just ready to move forward and convert all devices over now

If you've got screenshots related to DHCP reservations, I would definitely appreciate that. I'm thinking it may have to do with setting a DNS IP that is 9.9.9.9 rather than "automatic". I had to do that on WAP's and VLANs, but didn't do that on the static IP reservation.

The switch is terribly loud unfortunately I have it in my theater equipment room and it's adding a lot of noise even though it's behind a door. The fans appear to run unnecessarily high even though the temperature is very low.

 

[trpltongue]

WOOT!!! I think the DNS IP address was the problem!

I had left that option as "none" in my static IP reservation page. Changed it to 9.9.9.9 and now it works perfect!

At some point I'd like to understand that whole thing better. I'm not sure why I am relying on an outside DNS? But I don't understand the first thing about DNS in the base case So not sure where the DNS was getting resolved with my ATT equipment.

Now to let this all run for a few days and slowly convert all my wifi stuff over

 

[coxhaus]

Glad you figured it out. DHCP on the SG300-24 is not a strong point in my opinion but it gets the job done. I have not used SG350X DHCP so I am hoping for an improvement.

You have to use an outside DNS one way or another as it is what resolves outside IP addresses. You can start with a local DNS but at some point it will have to go outside. I assume you have DNS setup on the router as 9.9.9.9. I can use my router IP address 192.198.10.1 for DNS also. I tend to use it more that way if I change my DNS then the whole system will change. This is the way I remember it but I set this up years ago so it could be a little different. I think maybe the router does caching also.

 

[trpltongue]

I did setup the router with 9.9.9.9 and set the VLANs and WAP's to use the router IP 192.168.10.1, but it never worked. It only worked if I used the outside DNS.

Hey, when you mentioned the "from scratch" setup of the router, what did that entail? A full factory reset?

 

[coxhaus]

Yes. You need to do a full factory reset. You can do it from the software on the router rather than holding the button. Either way will work. You lose your config and you need to type it in again.

I will look over my DNS system and report back after while.

PS
I just set my laptop's DNS to 192.168.10.1 and it works. Can you try a Windows 10 PC and change DNS to use 192.168.10.1 ? Does it work?

 

[trpltongue]

Factory reset complete and everything is back up and running

When you say you set your laptops dns to 192.168.10.1, you mean in the wireless adapter settings? Or in the SG-300?

I've changed it to my router IP on one of my static routes and it seems to be working so far!

I'm going to give it some time to see what happens. I haven't changed it in the VLANs or anywhere else, just in the static route, but that's where it used to not work, so it's a step in the right direction!

 

[coxhaus]

Yes I changed my DNS setting under IPv4 under the wireless setting in my laptop Windows 10 PC.

Toddy time now. Going outside. Be back later.