TP-LINK Smart Switches anyone?

kk003

jaja, yeah kejianshi, your wellcome to the party :-)

kejianshi

You have a pfsense, a switch and a bunch of hosts running behind the switch? Is this correct?

If so, you can put your TPlink management interface/subnet/ip on the same subnet as your pfsense lan.

Then you can set up openvpn running on the pfsense wan.

Just be sure you have an allow all rule on openvpn firewall interface.

Really, its not hard. I'm sure you will get it working.

So, lets say the lan is 10.11.12.0/24 and lan interface IP is .1, you can make your management interface for tplink .2 on same subnet.

just make sure openvpn is running on some subnet not in use, like 10.12.13.0/24 (or whatever)

jahonix

@kk003:

Anyway, I have to get to the data center to reset the thing and try again.

Don't forget to take a serial cable for the CLI to the data center (and have a copy of the the CLI guide with you as well).
Should get you off the ground in minutes.

kk003

I have done a few jobs about vpn's and my setup should work one or another way.
I just try with a vpn client that should let me ping the switch's ip, but not. So I think the switch needs to be rebooted to get the new ip.
Have to say that this TL-SL2428_V1 don't have serial port.
Thanks for all the advice anyway :-)

Ok the post was started early of the year 2014 and
today other models and prices where in the game, but
if someone is looking forward to buy a managed switch
from the lower end or SMB area I would also consider
to the SG series (200,300,500) from Cisco they would
be running well and offering a wide asset of functions and
options, thats must be searched in many other switches.

But owed to the circumstance that two switches must be
bought and that this two switches should be connected together
I would also have look on the D-Link DGS-1510-20! Compared
against the TL-SG2216 it comes with 16 RJ45 GB ports and
2 SFP & 2 SFP+ ports, so it would be offering 10 GBit/s for
only ~70 € more for each switch then the TL-SG2216 comes (110 €).

Nnyan

@jahonix:

Nothing beats a CLI when you're in trouble.
Why did you change-out the other switches if they were not broken?

I agree but for my use I'm OK without it (I work 15 mins from my house) and it was a great price. There were lots of reasons, mostly due to increasing number of issues (things like devices rebooting, hanging, ports going bad, wanting to move to management, replacing 10/100 for gigabit, etc…).

I just bought a TP-Link TL-SG2424 switch yesterday and I am using it now. All I can say is it is pretty awesome.

kk003

Ok, after more than 90 days I did not have problems connecting to the web interface anymore.
What I did was to connect the switch to a PC with two interfaces:

eth0 -> public interface
eth1 -> private interface to the switch

Then I setup iptables to allow incoming connections only from my admin ips to eth0 through eth1.
eth1 and the switch's ip must be in the same range (eth1: 192.168.0.10 switch: 192.168.0.5)
The switch gateway must be the eth1's ip (192.168.0.10) and is advisable to change the web port in the switch

Then connect like this: http://public_ip_eth0:port

Hope this help some one.
Thanks for all.

einervonvielen

When I looked for switches with:

24x 1Gbe
fanless
IGMPv3 snooping capabilities

the usual big one vendors didn´t offer any device. Therefor I also looked for TPLink switches, but then purchased a bunch of Zyxel GS1910-24

Note: They work
But: Zyxel doesn´t provide software updates that often. Any open security bugs? Who knows. They don´t provide any information. That´s the problem with those smaller vendors in my opinion. You get what you pay for that´s all

jahonix

@einervonvielen:

…the usual big one vendors didn't offer any device.

I doubt that.
Cisco SG300-28; HP 1810-24G, …

robi

I had severe issues with Zyxel and pfSense connecting to each other using VLAN-tagged connections. The symptom was: after changing any VLAN-interface-related config in pfSense, communication would completely stop between the Zyxel GS1910-24 switch and the pfSense box on that VLAN. The only solution was to unplug and re-plug the cable (!) into the very same port of the switch.
Never had anything even similar with any TP-Link or other switch.

the usual big one vendors didn´t offer any device.

There are many other switches out, but not really in the same price range.
Cisco SG200-xx
Cisco SG300-xx
Cisco SG500-xx
D-Link DGS-1510-xx

einervonvielen

@jahonix:

@einervonvielen:

…the usual big one vendors didn't offer any device.

I doubt that.
Cisco SG300-28; HP 1810-24G, …

Cisco SG300-28

Well, I consider this Linksys, not Cisco ;)

HP 1810-24G

clearly no IGMPv3 snooping capabilities

D-Link DGS-1510-xx

I bought those GS1910-24 ~ 2 years ago. There was no DGS-1510…

Well, I wouldn´t buy those Zyxel anymore...

jahonix

@einervonvielen:

Cisco SG300-28

Well, I consider this Linksys, not Cisco ;)

I hear you. Happily sold a couple SRW-2008/16/24 some time ago and don't look back.
These new SG-series devices are a whole lot different and there's a reason why Linksys is now a brand of Belkin.

trumee

I have two VLANs defined on my Tplink TL-SG108E. The switch is on its own IP (192.168.0.1) which doesnt match with any of my local network. How can i put the switch ip on a separate vlan.

Derelict

Ask TP-Link.

robi

@trumee:

I have two VLANs defined on my Tplink TL-SG108E. The switch is on its own IP (192.168.0.1) which doesnt match with any of my local network. How can i put the switch ip on a separate vlan.

Is there a "Management VLAN" option anywhere in the menus?
If not, unfortunately this very basic "Easy Smart" model may not support this. This means the swicth's management interface is tied to VLAN 1.

However, you can trick the whole thing by leaving it as it is in VLAN 1, and in pfSense configure the interface connecting to the switch also as untagged in 192.168.0.X/24. By simply putting all the other ports of the switch in different VLANs, you'll keep VLAN 1 as your management VLAN for the switch only.

heper

@robi:

I had severe issues with Zyxel and pfSense connecting to each other using VLAN-tagged connections. The symptom was: after changing any VLAN-interface-related config in pfSense, communication would completely stop between the Zyxel GS1910-24 switch and the pfSense box on that VLAN. The only solution was to unplug and re-plug the cable (!) into the very same port of the switch.
Never had anything even similar with any TP-Link or other switch.

@work we have >50 zyxel switches some 22xx series / some 19xx series. Never had issue's and only very few hardware failures. some of those are connected to pfSense and i've never experienced anything like you are saying.
The last 5 years we've gotten 1x 2200 & 2x 1900 that were send back in warranty. even after 5 years of service they swapped them for free, no questions asked.

in any case, over here in belgium, when you send your switch back to zyxel through the official RMA procedure…. the replacement arrives in 2-3 days (after they've received your defective device). If you got a good supplier he could/should give you are replacement immediately and handle the RMA himself.
return you broken sample :)

Anyways, i love these zyxel switches:
-Dirt cheap (gs-1920-24 = around $130 | is actually 28ports, has 4 sfp)
-Good warranty
-Does everything i expect them todo
-Little failures

sure, there are cheapo 24p cisco(linksys)/hp/dlink switches for <$150. they are either worse in what they do and/or they have less features then the zyxels.

i'm not saying other vendors are all selling crap:
zyxel can/will not compete with top-end device from cisco/juniper/allied telesis/brocade. so if you need a $5k switch (for whatever reason) you'll end up with the big guns.

jahonix

@trumee: have a look at the VLAN tab. If you're lucky you can change the default VLAN there.

@heper: thanks for promoting Zyxel switches but how does it help here? And no, I don't want to discuss it further.

trumee

@robi:

Is there a "Management VLAN" option anywhere in the menus?
If not, unfortunately this very basic "Easy Smart" model may not support this. This means the swicth's management interface is tied to VLAN 1.

However, you can trick the whole thing by leaving it as it is in VLAN 1, and in pfSense configure the interface connecting to the switch also as untagged in 192.168.0.X/24. By simply putting all the other ports of the switch in different VLANs, you'll keep VLAN 1 as your management VLAN for the switch only.

No there is no "Management VLAN" anywhere in the menus. At the moment I have defined 3 vlans, VLAN 100/VLAN 200/VLAN 300 on pfsense box for the igb1 interface (which is connected to the switch). Are you suggesting one of the following?

a. Define "192.168.0.X/24" on the parent interface of these vlans
b. Create an additional VLAN 1 on pfsense box and define it as "192.168.0.X/24"

Thanks