Question about using two non-stackable switches connected to an SG-2100 redundantly

zephyrit

My customer has two Trendnet switches which are barely 'managed'. They do not have the ability to be stacked virtually or otherwise. Ideally I would like to connect them both to the firewall, and then connect them to each other for redundancy in case a one of the cables from the switch to the firewall dies. Ideally I would stack them and create an LACP link with two cables, one going to each switch from the firewall, but thats not an option here.

Im thinking that if I connect the two switches then STP should handle the loop: .

Is this viable? If, for example, the link from S2:G0/1 to LAN2 fails, will STP unblock the link between G0/24 allowing traffic to flow, or is that something that would need to be manually configured in STP?

I know that I could daisy chain the switches but I would like to have some redundancy if possible.

keyser

@zephyrit Yes, (R)STP is normally what would be needed to resolve that situation (and it would do it automatically).

But I don’t think you can do it with a Netgate 2100 as the 4 LAN ports are actually switched ports. On larger models you would simply create 2 interfaces as a bridge and activate RSTP, but that can’t be done on 2100.
A side note: You can’t do LACP either on the 2100 because of the switched ports. So getting properly stackable switches won’t help you either.

So I think you are stuck at just connecting the switches individually to a port in pfSense and not have direct link/cable between the switches as a “failover”.
Realistically the chances of a failed link alone that does not include other failures are EXTREMELY slim, so I would actually connect it this way anyways.

JonathanLee

@zephyrit can you do a LAGG and make virtually one giant switch ? The 2100 can configure ports in a LAGG setup with vlans

keyser

@JonathanLee said in Question about using two non-stackable switches connected to an SG-2100 redundantly:

@zephyrit can you do a LAGG and make virtually one giant switch ? The 2100 can configure ports in a LAGG setup with vlans
That's not possible as you cannot LAGG (with or without LACP) the LAN ports in the 2100 - because they are switched internally on the SOC.

zephyrit

@keyser Ok, good to know, thank you. I guess it will just be each switch connected individually to a LAN port on the firewall.