[SCFN] router vs. switch

[Israel Lopez-LISTS]

see notes below

green bean wrote:
> Our head of IT [who never even heard of m0n0wall or pfSense, hes a 
> Windoze-only person]
> says that:
> we have a standard D-Link wireless router. one of the ports is marked 
> WAN, the rest are LAN.
> he says you cannot use the WAN port as an uplink because its feed from 
> other switches upstream,
> instead of directly off our [satellite] modem.
> True?
Yes, I imagine he is doing NAT for you, and plugging in a LAN switch 
into the WAN side of your Dlink will (if default config) to double NAT 
the connection
Internet IP [router] Private IP [router] Private IP
>  
> He says we should use it as a switch, only using the LAN ports, 
> putting the feed from upstream switches into one of those LAN ports.
> Does this make sense?
Yep.  Those devices are essentially a switch + router... you can just 
use the switch ports and turn off DHCP on the dlink and youve got a dumb 
switch.
>  
> In switches and hubs, all ports are numbered, none of them marked 
> "uplink."
> He says if port 1 is used as an uplink, the port next to it should be 
> kept vacant,
> because it wont work.
> True?
Uh, he may be doing some assumptions.  That may have been true with a 
specific model.  He may have been giving you information on the 
assumption to make it work.
>  
> We have a 24 port switch [other switches are upstream] which i plugged 
> my laptop into.
> I cant get a regular [192.168 etc] IP, windoze gives me a useless 
> 169.etc IP and says limited or no connectivity of course.
> I tried ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew but that didnt help.
Sounds like no DHCP available.
>  
> So I move downstream to a D-Link wireless router with one of its LAN 
> ports connected to the 24 port switch.
> Its WAN port is kept vacant for the "reason" discussed above.
> I plug into another of its LAN ports and I get a regular 192.168.etc IP.
Thats the Dlink providing you a DHCP, and that same DHCP service is 
interfering with the rest of the network, I recommend you check with 
your IT guy again.
> This doesnt make sense because im downstream from the 24 port switch 
> which wouldnt give me a regular IP.
> Im guessing the 24 port switch had no more IPs to give out even though 
> it had vacant ports.
> Can this be true?
Potentially, but the switch usually does not provide a DHCP service, 
another device usually does.  It may have only 50 IPs to give out, or 24 
IPs, but normally handing out IPs is not the switch's job.  Usually a 
windows domain controller, or gateway router's job.
>  
> -david on Lotus St. :)
>  
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