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switch or router?

B

BlessedMoogle

n00b
Joined
Jan 24, 2005
Messages
22
I am setting up a home network, and I am unsure of what would be my best option. Each computer has its own software firewall, so I am not worried about the firewall part of a router. It is likely that I will use the option that is the most simple to setup. I have also read somewhere that you can't just plug a cable modem and several computers into a switch and have it work, is this true? Any insight would be extremely helpful. Thanks
 
Router if you are just a small home network with a few PCs to connect. Easier to work with IMO.
 
Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned that I already have the network set up. 3 computers networked via cat6 to a d-link router to the cable modem. The router is crap, and is causing alot of connectivity issues. A co-worker suggested that a switch would resolve connectivity issues, and recommends that I use them over a switch. The problem is that I am unsure of how to set up a switch to replace a router.
 
A switch is a the same as your router except the router does nat and DHCP. Without NAT you cant share a single external IP over multiple internals, so only one computer with the external IP addy will get net. You might try a firmware upgrade on your router. D-links usually are reliable.
 
I prefer a router over software firewalls...better performance, less issues, and I trust the NAT more to not fail me in hiding my PCs from the wild side.
 
A switch is an upgrade to a hub, not a router. They perform different jobs and you generally cannot replace a router with a switch.

A switch intelligently moves data packets between machines on the same subnet or segment of your network while a hub handles the same job though does so unintelligently and in an inefficient manner. A router 'routes' data between network segments or subnets and provides a bridge between your home network and the larger WAN (ISP network/Internet.)

One of the key technologies used in SOHO routers to accomplish this task is NAT. Which says that computerA with an address of 192.168.0.1 wants to talk to a server on port 6805 so I'll make it appear that port 6805 is talking over my external IP, 68.254.64.92. (example only.) To the outside world or the rest of the WAN (the wide area network - the external network) it appears that your computerA is talking on 68.254.64.92:6805. When computerB wants to talk over the same port, the network address is translated again to ensure that all the packets are sent (and received) properly. A conventional SOHO switch is incapable of performing that task.

NAT is not a firewall, it is a networking tool, but by virtue of providing network address translation, it can act as one. Most newer SOHO routers have started to support SPI in addition to NAT. SPI, or stateful packet inspection, is a firewall architecture that monitors and inspects all packets traversing the network to ensure they are valid. SPI works by inspecting the header information and/or contents of each packet to ensure the traffic that is going to computerA was actually requested by computerA and that the packets themselves are not behaving suspiciously. Again, a conventional SOHO switch is incapable of performing these tasks.

Unless your ISP offers you multiple IP addresses it will be impossible for you to plug your switch into the back of the cable modem (replacing the router) and have it work correctly. You will have more problems than you currently do with intermittent and odd behavior. For most home networks you need (and should have) a router with an SPI firewall.

Which Dlink do you have specifically and have you looked for firmware updates as previously mentioned? Some of the earlier Dlink models had a flaky switch which had a tendency to behave oddly with age... that may be what you are experiencing. A firmware upgrade won't solve that as it was a hardware problem... but it may help other issues you may be having.

P.S. Software firewalls are useful to determine if there is anything on your machine wanting out... but that about ends their usefulness. All of them can be disabled remotely though some take more than others. It is not a safe practice to rely wholey on software firewalls. You want the protection of an SPI based firewall.

If you have an old system laying around you can turn it into a linux router with one of the many distros out there. Or if you'd prefer a simple hardware box, look at some of the newer Dlink products. If you do not need wireless the DGL-4100 is exceptional. The golden age of Linksys is dwindling but there are still a few good choices in their line up as well.
 
BlessedMoogle said:
The problem is that I am unsure of how to set up a switch to replace a router.
Click to expand...

It doesn't. A router connects different networks...it "routes" them. Takes one network. (your home LAN)...and connects them to another network (the internet). In this common mode for home users, it's running as a gateway.

Now most home market routers also happen to have a built in 4 (or more) port switch, and maybe even a built in wireless access point. They sort of evolved towards these all in one gateway appliances, rather than the basic vanilla router that we had 10 years ago, with just a WAN port and a LAN port (which most higher end full blown routers still are).
 
Thank you for the information. I have limited my problem down to a DNS issue i believe. Occasionally, computerA will be browsing the internet and suddenly it can't get anywhere until the browser is restarted. This really only occurs on computerA, computers B and C are not experiencing this problem. ComputerA is running win2k, while B and C are running winXP and slackware linux. Is it possible that my ISP is consistently changing the DNS on us and win2k is unable to keep up with the change? Or is this simply a router gone bad? The router is a d-link DI-624 using firmware 2.05 or 2.07 (I am at work, cannot check it at the moment).

Edit: I have a powerbook which also needs to be able to access the internet. Curently it works fine over the wireless, and I would like to keep it that way. If this is in fact a problem from my router, is there a new router that can also function as an WAP that you would suggest?
 
There are several revisions for the DI-624 but the only one that has version numbers as high as 2.0x is the Revision C model. They have 2.53 and 2.70 updates available online at www.dlink.com .

Have you tried ComputerA (win2K) in a different port on the router? Are the systems otherwise the same? Does the Win2K system have a PCI NIC or a built-in one? You may want to see if there are updates to the NIC driver for Win2K.

You should also drop to a command prompt (cmd or command from 'Start/Run') and type "ipconfig /all" then make sure the Physical Address is different for each machine on your network. If one of them is the same it can cause havoc on your network.

If you want wireless, I'd go with a DGL-4300... or one of the newer Linksys series that is still base on Linux. I've been out of the Linksys world since they screwed up the WRT54G... so someone else will need to recommend one of those.
 
Orinthical said:
A switch is an upgrade to a hub, not a router. They perform different jobs and you generally cannot replace a router with a switch.

A switch intelligently moves data packets between machines on the same subnet or segment of your network while a hub handles the same job though does so unintelligently and in an inefficient manner. A router 'routes' data between network segments or subnets and provides a bridge between your home network and the larger WAN (ISP network/Internet.)

One of the key technologies used in SOHO routers to accomplish this task is NAT. Which says that computerA with an address of 192.168.0.1 wants to talk to a server on port 6805 so I'll make it appear that port 6805 is talking over my external IP, 68.254.64.92. (example only.) To the outside world or the rest of the WAN (the wide area network - the external network) it appears that your computerA is talking on 68.254.64.92:6805. When computerB wants to talk over the same port, the network address is translated again to ensure that all the packets are sent (and received) properly. A conventional SOHO switch is incapable of performing that task.

NAT is not a firewall, it is a networking tool, but by virtue of providing network address translation, it can act as one. Most newer SOHO routers have started to support SPI in addition to NAT. SPI, or stateful packet inspection, is a firewall architecture that monitors and inspects all packets traversing the network to ensure they are valid. SPI works by inspecting the header information and/or contents of each packet to ensure the traffic that is going to computerA was actually requested by computerA and that the packets themselves are not behaving suspiciously. Again, a conventional SOHO switch is incapable of performing these tasks.

Unless your ISP offers you multiple IP addresses it will be impossible for you to plug your switch into the back of the cable modem (replacing the router) and have it work correctly. You will have more problems than you currently do with intermittent and odd behavior. For most home networks you need (and should have) a router with an SPI firewall.

Which Dlink do you have specifically and have you looked for firmware updates as previously mentioned? Some of the earlier Dlink models had a flaky switch which had a tendency to behave oddly with age... that may be what you are experiencing. A firmware upgrade won't solve that as it was a hardware problem... but it may help other issues you may be having.

P.S. Software firewalls are useful to determine if there is anything on your machine wanting out... but that about ends their usefulness. All of them can be disabled remotely though some take more than others. It is not a safe practice to rely wholey on software firewalls. You want the protection of an SPI based firewall.

If you have an old system laying around you can turn it into a linux router with one of the many distros out there. Or if you'd prefer a simple hardware box, look at some of the newer Dlink products. If you do not need wireless the DGL-4100 is exceptional. The golden age of Linksys is dwindling but there are still a few good choices in their line up as well.
Click to expand...

Best post I've seen in a long time.

Kudos, my friend. Kudos!
 
Orinthical said:
There are several revisions for the DI-624 but the only one that has version numbers as high as 2.0x is the Revision C model. They have 2.53 and 2.70 updates available online at www.dlink.com .

Have you tried ComputerA (win2K) in a different port on the router? Are the systems otherwise the same? Does the Win2K system have a PCI NIC or a built-in one? You may want to see if there are updates to the NIC driver for Win2K.

You should also drop to a command prompt (cmd or command from 'Start/Run') and type "ipconfig /all" then make sure the Physical Address is different for each machine on your network. If one of them is the same it can cause havoc on your network.

If you want wireless, I'd go with a DGL-4300... or one of the newer Linksys series that is still base on Linux. I've been out of the Linksys world since they screwed up the WRT54G... so someone else will need to recommend one of those.
Click to expand...

I have tried the 2k computer in every port on the router. It has a pci nic, im not sure of the brand of it. It is an old machine (p3, 256mb sdram). There are no identical computers on the network, each is severely different from the others.
 
If you have another PCI NIC laying around and haven't already, it may be worth swapping it out and seeing if that solves your problem. In the least, try looking for what driver the PCI NIC is using and see if there are any updates for it from the manufacturer or chipset provider. i.e. if it's a netgear card but a realtek chipset, try netgear first then realtek. You should be able to find out what driver is currently being used by opening device manager and expanding the network controllers area. Alternatively you could always shut the machine down and pop out the NIC to see if its make and model are physically identifiable.

If this is only happening on the 2K box I would suspect driver/hardware issues over DNS or the router itself...

To go back to the basics for a moment, you said you tried different ports -- but did you try a different cable?

If you want to explore DNS as the issue you can try putting 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 in as your primary and secondary DNS on the offending box instead of using DHCP to get your DNS servers.
 
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