NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.

Forum Discussion

jmail92's avatar
jmail92
Aspirant
Sep 18, 2025

GS308Ev4, GS305E - Help with uplinks/downlinks

Could I please have some help or confirmation that I have these setup correctly?  I'm weary that they are because I sometimes have trouble connecting to the admin interfaces on these switches.  I've already locked myself out of about 5 of these (they become unreachable) and had to do factory resets and start over. 

 

Other times, I login and the admin pages don't fully load.  Or sometimes they load with weird names and labels.  Sometimes I logout and chrome says "no data from site".  I'm concerned I'm losing some packets somewhere.  But generally speaking, everything is working and the untagged (U) vlan access ports are divvying out the correct ip addresses and devices are communicating within themselves ok.

 

I don't think I'm understanding how the uplinks/downlinks need to be tagged, or untagged.

 

Here's the big picture.  Looking at it on paper makes me feel like I'm way out of league.  There's a lot of empty ports, I'm just starting.

 

Here's the 4 port setup on the router

 

Let me just start down the port 1 trunk (stuff on left of picture).  Here's the setup of GS308Ev4-1 for VLAN1

Same router VLAN31

Same router pvid

And then both GS305E-1 and -2 are setup the same which is:

How am I doing?

2 Replies

  • schumaku's avatar
    schumaku
    Guru - Experienced User

    That's not a question of up- and downlink - all ports are the same, there is no designated uplink port.

     

    Much more, the future network designers must understand that these small Plus switches are not built on a managed cores, so the Web UI can ONLY operate untagged, Tagged frames are ignored by the switch uC handling the the WebUI.

     

    These are not Smart Managed Switches or Managed Switches where the CPU port can be configured for a management VLAN.

     

    You must ensuite the management or admin "VLAN" must be able to reach these switches on an untagged connection. Said that, used need to understand his restriction on designing their networks. 

     

    If you desire to design and implement your network with a management VLAN, these switch models are not for you. This is the price you pay by deploying these very inexpensive Plus switches, but plan to implement a business class network.

     

    When I see uplinks and downlink ports carrying tagged ports only, it's obvious you won't he able to manage (== administrate) the switched due to this limitation.

    • jmail92's avatar
      jmail92
      Aspirant

      Thanks for the reply.  Ok, bit of clarification.  This is a home network.  And apologies for using the wrong up/down link terminology.  It just made sense to me.   Does the above configuration require a management VLAN?

       

      You must ensuite the management or admin "VLAN" must be able to reach these switches on an untagged connection.

       

      So  the setup of GS308Ev4-1 for VLAN1 maybe needs to be:

      ?

NETGEAR Academy

Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology! 

Join Us!

ProSupport for Business

Comprehensive support plans for maximum network uptime and business peace of mind.

 

Learn More