Hello all
After spending all day yesterday learning about managed switches, Vlans, firewall rules and connectivity issues. I have come to the decision that i am biting off more than i can chew and if i do manage to chew it i will definitely get indigestion.
Therefore I will install pfsense as a plain vanilla solution with 1 LAN (192.168.1.1) to which i will connect this to a 24 port managed switch (that i still need to buy)
to the switch I will connect to my 4 serves and the home automation server directly and connect one port to the powerline in the loft. I will set with a static IP address for all the servers. and DHCP for the powerline.
then the powerline in the loft will connect to the powerline in each room which in turn will connect either to a computer directly or to a simple switch.
In the case of the living room i will connect the asus as an AP, my HTPC and my TV with a static IP. to a small switch. If it would help I can connect the asus AP to it's own powerine. would this be better? then the on the asus i will segregate the home wifi and the guest wifi.
In the case of the home theatre room I will connect the projector via wifi and the HTPC *with a static IP to the a simple switch that will be connected to the powerline in that room .
once this is all done and working i will start to develop the firewall rules to further secure my environment. and then learn of to design develop and implement vlan to segregate the IOT from the rest of my environment
Once again thank you for your contribution and I apologise for being so long winded.