TL-SG1024DE Port Trunking

[TonyStark]

Hello everyone, as a Linus fan who respects himself, I'd like to place a post here and ask you a question on a matter that possibly some people may have faced. Here it goes...

I have a TL-SG1024DE TP-LINK 24 Port Gb managed switch and I have setup a Freenas box with an onboard LAN (giugabit) plus another PCI gigabit LAN card for my needs. It runs on a Dell PERC 5 RAID controller (to avoid the software RAID bottleneck). Now I have setup on my NAS box a Link Aggregation using LACP (with the 2 NICs) and I have created a port trunk on my switch. The question is based on this I should setup VLAN etc etc....the problem with that is that after I create a VLAN, the FreeNAS is rendered inaccessible (!), sounds normal i guess (VLAN = another (virtual) lan on a (physical) lan)...so what can I do ? Or maybe, I don't need the VLAN etc etc ? Can you please help me on this one ? thank you in advance.

[Darren]

LACP and VLAN trunking are two very different things. You're looking in the wrong place if you're trying to set up VLANs in order to achieve link aggregation.

[TonyStark]

I know that they are different. I do believe that the TP-LINK manual is a bit misleading in this matter (i could not afford a CISCO at that time). I have already setup link aggregation on my FreeNAS and on the switch. My question was weather I should do anything on the switch regarding the VLAN or not. If not then i believe that it is setup correctly.

[Footy]

if your switch supports VLANs then every network on your switch will technically be a VLAN

 

There are two ways to configure your switch ports

Access

Trunk

 

An Access port will only send and receive packets to its assigned vlan (in cisco if no vlan is specified it uses vlan 1)

A Trunk port 'can' send multiple vlans over a single connection.

 

Let me go into a trunk ports a bit more;

A trunk port supports Tagged and Untagged packets, (A Tagged packet is a network packet with an extra bit of data attached to it which specifies what VLAN it belongs to) (An Untagged packet is just packet data with no extra tag)

"For the purpose of this post" there is essentially no difference between 'an access port on vlan 1'  and 'a trunk port with native vlan 1' (Native VLAN is the name of the untagged vlan on a trunk in Cisco)

 

 

Etherchannel or LAG (Link Aggregation Group)

This is the term used to describe a bundle of 1-8 ports operating as a single logical link to allow multiple dataflows between devices without creating loops

 

LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol)

Is a protocol than can be used to help control LAG's to prevent config missmatches at either end and to ensure all ports are part of the same LAG at each end.

 

 

To connect your Freenas box to a switch with a LAG;

1) Choose the type of Link Aggregation protocol (LACP for a LAG+LACP)  (FEC for just a LAG)

2) Set an IP on your new interface 'lagg0'

3) Setup your switch with a LAG combining the ports connected to laag0 with or without LACP depending on your choice earlier

4) Check the native VLAN on the LAG is correct for your data flow requirements

5) Test

 

BTW, can I ask why you want to connect both the cables in a LAG?

[TonyStark]

Why do I want LAG you mean ? I share media in the house and also I perform several bandwidth consuming tasks at the same time...