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What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?

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What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?

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What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-05 01:58:27 - last edited 2023-05-05 02:00:08
Model: OC200  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 5.9.32

Hi, none of the manuals seem to mention what Eth2 is used for on the OC200 and I can't see it has any configuration visibility on the omada conroller panel for my site. So what's it do? 

I connected a LAN endpoint to Eth2 to see what would happen and it can see the LAN on the PoE Eth1 port, so I can use it as a 100 Mbps passthrough port I guess which could mean I get a free 100 Mbps Ethernet port back that the controller borrowed from my switch. But I have no way to configure it to do anything smarter than this LAN extension, for example VLAN. I mean, I could be silly and put the controller's Eth1 on a VLAN port on the switch and Eth2 would probably pick that up, but that'd complicate things too much for my poor fried brain.

The device I have on Eth2 shows up in my Switch's Client Group but I would've thought it should show as hanging off the OC200. I've seen a post here that says it can be used for brick recovery of the controller.

 

There's no mention of Eth2 in the manuals other than it's there. So an official guide to the uses and abuses of the Eth2 port on the Controller would be really nice to have, but I can't find one. At least let me know where in the controller page I can find its setup if you can. TIA!

 

Here's my present network map:

Paul
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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-05 03:34:30

  @paulrob 

 

Think of it as a local console port.  It really is no more than a dumb 2-port 100M ethernet switch.

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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-05 21:29:56

  @paulrob 

 

Its pretty much just for admin access to the controller if you need it, otherwise its only 100mbps and not really good for anything! 

 

 

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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-06 12:53:48 - last edited 2023-05-06 12:57:25

  @Philbert there are IoT devices that work below 100 Mbps that are quite happy to use a slow port which would then leave a fast 1Gbps port in the switch free for faster devices. For example, my Solar PV inverter statistics and control port is slower but vital (see the network map in my OP). This way, daisy chaining it through the OC200 frees up a fast switch port for other things, and saves me having to upgrade from a 10 port box to a 16 or more port box just for that one device. But it'd be nicer if I could put it on a VLAN also.

Paul
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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-06 14:44:10

  @paulrob 

 

While its personal choice on how to use this port.  

 

Would I be passing IOT traffic through the controller of my network on the default vlan?   No, would strongly recommend against this.

 

A cheap 4 port switch hanging off the router or another switch would be a much better idea

 

 

 

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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-08 03:54:01 - last edited 2023-05-08 04:01:13

  @Philbert Thanks for the comment but a cheap 4-port switch is unlikely to have VLAN capability, therefore is probably not any more helpful than what I have now. Anyway, the PV inverter device is a high quality well-supported machine, not a garden-variety el-cheapo IoT device, and for now while it's getting regular updates I'll trust it. Certainly trust it more than my smart lights and and Chromecast dongle and Fetch TV and other such devices (I have a number of them), and my home NAS is a well-known attack vector as well so it's not open to the internet.

Paul
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Re:What is the purpose of Eth2 on the OC200?
2023-05-08 12:06:02

  @paulrob I think it is simply to replace the port on the gateway that the OC200 occupies.  I found myself short one Ethernet port in my initial deployment, and plugged an EAP110 into the OC200.  However, this seems to throw the traffic counters off as it seems the EAP110 is now counted as wired data.  See another inquiry about this #COUNTERS matter.  

 

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