VLAN Queries

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audiobahn

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Sep 29, 2021
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Hi All,

VLANs are very much a learning curve for me for now so if you have a recommendation on any guides / tutorials that explain the below queries, would appreciate pointing me in the right direction. I'm trying to understand how they work exactly to help me plan what hardware I should investing in to meet my home setup needs. Here goes:

I understand the basic principle of VLANs from the respect of how they apply to "real" ports but I'm a little confused on how they can be applied (or not) to clients connected to the network via Wireless Access Points or non-managed switches.

Can I for instance force a specific client connected via a Wirelss AP to be part of a specific VLAN or do VLAN settings for the port the Wireless AP is connected to apply to all clients on that AP? If clients can be "isolated", would this be done on the switch (if so is this considered a L2 or L3 capability?) or firewall or both?

Would the Wireless AP example apply the same if we're talking about a non-managed switch?

Real Example (one of many): I have an Ethernet cable running from my main switch to my living room. An unmanaged switch then distributes the connection to my Satellite Box, Amplifier, and HTTP. I am now looking to install an "HDMI over IP" device to share a video output to other TVs in my house. The HDMI-o-IP is multicast so I would like to isolate it from other devices on the network to avoid unnecessary data flooding but the only way to connect it to the network is via the unmanaged switch. I appreciate the best solution is to run a separate Ethernet to the HDMI-o-IP but unfortunately this is not an option. Can I isolate the HDMI-o-POE through the main managed switch or do I need change the unmanaged switch to a managed one?

For full clarity... I don't yet have a firewall installed and the main switch will be a Cisco WS-C2960L-16PS-LL (L2 Managed but can upgrade this to a L3 switch if necessary).

Thanks in advance.
 
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j_h_o

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Apr 21, 2015
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Yes, you can apply VLANs per client/MAC, or you could do it per SSID. The ability to do this depends on the AP's capabilities.
In an extreme/usually undesirable case, you can also force all clients connected to 1 AP to a VLAN.

Non-managed switch: Usually, this is undesirable. Unmanaged switches usually handle VLANs by either dropping all VLAN tagged packets, or by blindly forwarding all the packets anyway. You can technically use a "blindly forwarding all the packets" unmanaged switch. There may be some listings online of switches that behave this way.

L2 vs L3 management would allow the switch to do IP routing, which I don't think is relevant, given your examples/questions above. You don't need an L3 managed switch if you're going to expose all/terminate your VLANs to/at your firewall.

(I'm not immediately aware of a relevant guide; others may be more helpful answering that question.)
 
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audiobahn

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Sep 29, 2021
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j_h_o said:
Yes, you can apply VLANs per client/MAC, or you could do it per SSID. The ability to do this depends on the AP's capabilities.
In an extreme/usually undesirable case, you can also force all clients connected to 1 AP to a VLAN.

Non-managed switch: Usually, this is undesirable. Unmanaged switches usually handle VLANs by either dropping all VLAN tagged packets, or by blindly forwarding all the packets anyway. You can technically use a "blindly forwarding all the packets" unmanaged switch. There may be some listings online of switches that behave this way.

L2 vs L3 management would allow the switch to do IP routing, which I don't think is relevant, given your examples/questions above. You don't need an L3 managed switch if you're going to expose all/terminate your VLANs to/at your firewall.

(I'm not immediately aware of a relevant guide; others may be more helpful answering that question.)
Click to expand...
Thanks for that.

My access point is a Ruckus R710 running on unleashed, I can see each client has VLAN assigned but I think this inherited by the VLAN assigned to the SSID. I couldn't find a way to change the VLAN assigned to each user individually and I suspect this is not possible or not available as on option on the WebUI (will go through the CLI reference to see if it's possible). I suspect this would be possible using an AP controller but I've skipped using one on purpose...

Your explanation unmanaged switches was enlightening, thanks. Will look out for a small cheap managed switch instead.
 
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audiobahn

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Sep 29, 2021
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