TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich

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TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich

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TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-13 06:53:58
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I'm wondering about the TP-Link Easy Smart Switches I see for sale with 5 or more ports. It says they can implement VLAN tagging. They are all wired ports so I surmise there is no way to implement these wireless? Or would that essentially be similar to what multi SSID capable wireless routers do with more than one login on both guest and main?
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#1
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-16 03:37:15
Not sure what you mean with "no way to implement these wireless". Of course, you can connect an AP with multi-SSID and tagged port to an Easy Smart Switch to either separate the VLANs on the switch to several ports or to carry on a VLAN trunk to a VLAN-aware router through those switches.
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#2
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-18 03:59:59

R1D2 wrote

Not sure what you mean with "no way to implement these wireless". Of course, you can connect an AP with multi-SSID and tagged port to an Easy Smart Switch to either separate the VLANs on the switch to several ports or to carry on a VLAN trunk to a VLAN-aware router through those switches.


Thanks for the reply. Please elaborate so to clear up my confusion.

My current setup is a 4 port + wireless router. Currently all my nodes (except the printer) are wireless.
Contemplating what I could do if I bought the switch and wired it out of one of the router's ports.

(1) I had thought Ethernet wiring an AP out of one of the switch's ports but was confused on these two aspects.

(1a) Wondering if the AP (if not wired far enough away from the router) would cause radio interference to the router.
But then I guess I could just disable the wireless on the router and run everything thru the AP.

(1b) But then if all the wireless nodes are coming thru the one AP I wasn't sure how that could separate any VLan via the switch when it's all going in and out of the one switch port?
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#3
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-18 06:09:26

RB2881 wrote

(1) I had thought Ethernet wiring an AP out of one of the switch's ports but was confused on these two aspects.


What do you want to achieve doing so? Extending wireless range? If so, you safely could add an AP to one of the 4 ports of your router. No need for an external switch - the 4 ports (and I bet there is a fifth port for WAN/Internet, too) are a switch already. But if there is no free port to connect an AP to the router, an external switch can provide more ports.

(1a) Wondering if the AP (if not wired far enough away from the router) would cause radio interference to the router.


Any RF equipment will always contribute to interferences, even bluetooth or DECT devices or even the wireless remote control of a kid's play gear if it works in the same frequency band. If positioned badly (e.g. in front of a metal plate) even the router's AP itself creates interferences while sending data.

Only question is how much interference the router's built-in AP can accept before bailing out. To reduce interference you would choose another WiFi channel for an additional/external AP, but set it to the same SSID as your router's AP. This way, you extend the WiFi cell while keeping sort of "roaming" between both APs.

(1b) But then if all the wireless nodes are coming thru the one AP I wasn't sure how that could separate any VLan via the switch when it's all going in and out of the one switch port?


You would need VLANs only if using multiple SSIDs on the same radio. Do you?

If not, Ethernet traffic is split by MAC address, IP traffic is split by IP address. If you don't use multi-SSID (for example a private and a guest network on one wireless AP/radio), you won't need VLANs. If you do use multi-SSID and want to extend this setup to an external AP, you would not only need a VLAN-aware switch, but your router also needs to understand VLANs on its built-in switch.

In short, VLANs are a way to carry more than one network over the same physical cable. Switches which are not VLAN-aware are always located inside the same network and they distribute traffic to ports according to the MAC addresses of connected devices the switch detects on those ports.
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#4
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-19 03:52:59

R1D2 wrote

What do you want to achieve doing so? Extending wireless range? If so, you safely could add an AP to one of the 4 ports of your router. No need for an external switch - the 4 ports (and I bet there is a fifth port for WAN/Internet, too) are a switch already. But if there is no free port to connect an AP to the router, an external switch can provide more ports.


? I guess I misunderstood your 1st reply where you said [-> Not sure what you mean with "no way to implement these wireless". Of course, you can connect an AP with multi-SSID and tagged port to an Easy Smart Switch to either separate the VLANs on the switch to several ports or to carry on a VLAN trunk to a VLAN-aware router through those switches<- ]

I thought you were saying I could implement the TP-Link Smart Switch VLan via plugging an AP into one it's ports. I was merely asking you how you meant to do that ? Given my setup I'm wondering how I could use the Switch since it's wired and my network is Wireless from the Router.

Any RF equipment will always contribute to interferences, even bluetooth or DECT devices or even the wireless remote control of a kid's play gear if it works in the same frequency band. If positioned badly (e.g. in front of a metal plate) even the router's AP itself creates interferences while sending data.

Only question is how much interference the router's built-in AP can accept before bailing out. To reduce interference you would choose another WiFi channel for an additional/external AP, but set it to the same SSID as your router's AP. This way, you extend the WiFi cell while keeping sort of "roaming" between both APs.


Again this is all academic as said above I misunderstood your 1st reply so all of this was merely me asking you how I might implement what I thought you were suggesting. Obviously I misunderstood your premise.

You would need VLANs only if using multiple SSIDs on the same radio. Do you?

If not, Ethernet traffic is split by MAC address, IP traffic is split by IP address. If you don't use multi-SSID (for example a private and a guest network on one wireless AP/radio), you won't need VLANs. If you do use multi-SSID and want to extend this setup to an external AP, you would not only need a VLAN-aware switch, but your router also needs to understand VLANs on its built-in switch.

In short, VLANs are a way to carry more than one network over the same physical cable. Switches which are not VLAN-aware are always located inside the same network and they distribute traffic to ports according to the MAC addresses of connected devices the switch detects on those ports.


I still don't quite see how to use the switch unless I run cables to it. So if I depend on wireless it's not the thing.

Now originally I had also l surmised that a Multi SSID wireless router kind of did the same thing (with different logisitics) as the VLAN wired switch. So in essense maybe if I used a Multi SSID router that would give me (kind of) the wireless VLan. Maybe, or maybe not kind of the same thing. But again the switch is wired and I don't see how to use it when I have two or more laptops accessing the LAN thru the wireless router.

Please comment as you will on this. And I thank you for the reply.
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#5
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-19 18:23:01

RB2881 wrote

I thought you were saying I could implement the TP-Link Smart Switch VLan via plugging an AP into one it's ports. I was merely asking you how you meant to do that ? Given my setup I'm wondering how I could use the Switch since it's wired and my network is Wireless from the Router.


I guess there is a mis-understanding about the concept of a router, switch, wireless adapters and VLANs. There are no wireless Ethernet switches. All Ethernet switches and all Easy Smart Switches always need to be interconnected by wired cables.

Now originally I had also l surmised that a Multi SSID wireless router kind of did the same thing (with different logisitics) as the VLAN wired switch. So in essense maybe if I used a Multi SSID router that would give me (kind of) the wireless VLan. Maybe, or maybe not kind of the same thing.


Wireless routers and APs supporting Multi-SSID use VLANs on the wired (Ethernet) side to direct traffic on separate WLANs to separate VLANs. VLANs are an extension to the Ethernet protocol and not implemented in wireless protocols.

But again the switch is wired and I don't see how to use it when I have two or more laptops accessing the LAN thru the wireless router.


Usually routers are boxes with a built-in router and a built-in Ethernet switch, often a VLAN-capable Ethernet switch. If an additional wireless AP is built-into the router, too, it's called a "wireless router". So far, I have not seen any wireless router which does not have Ethernet ports for connecting devices by cable (at least one Ethernet port needs to be there to be able to connect the router to the Internet).
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#6
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Re:TP-Link Easiy Smart Swtich
2018-02-20 01:23:24

R1D2 wrote

I guess there is a mis-understanding about the concept < . . . . . >


Uh well definitely a misunderstanding of what I was actually asking. But as I have attempted to conject, the concept of separating lan nodes (and groups of nodes) is the premise of the VLAN switch. And I have confirmed by this exchange that it depends totally on wire (cable) going into the switches physical ports. So we can put that to rest.

However (though I'm not privy to whether it uses VLAN tags or internal firewall rules or whatever) a Multi SSID wireless router also does a node (or SSID login) separation thing. Granted different brands & models vary in the magnitudes of separation depending on how it allows configurations of any given SSID (or guest SSID).

Of course ruling out from the above depiction the scenario were the guest login is merely run thru a separate website server (like Linksys did, or possibly still does) since that voids some of the security that a true in router guest SSID does.

So in summation if one depends on wireless (wherein it's not expedient to run cables) some Multi SSID routers can offer node(S) separation dependent on having the login passkey. But the Easy Smart switch though a very useful item with cables is not the ticket for said scenaro.
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#7
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