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Ethernet Bridge 802.1D
Hi there,
I am quite surprise that a powerline extension between a XAV5622 and XAV5421 is not working at all. Mainly, this setup a simple connection between a main switch and other switch using trunking with few vlans tagged. I did the following tests:
- If I connect the two switches directly, the link is established without any issues
- If I connect the main switch with the powerline devices to a PC, no issues at all
- If I connect the two switches with the powerline devices using trunking, there is no connection despite the lights are green so both powerline devices see each other but no traffic at all.
I installed the Netgear Genie app and it is showing the powerline devices pairing and with a good speed (250Mbps).
Is there anyone who knows if the these devices can transport the protocol IEEE802.1Q?
Thank you,
Regards,
mvlvigo wrote:- If I connect the two switches with the powerline devices using trunking, there is no connection despite the lights are green so both powerline devices see each other but no traffic at all.
I installed the Netgear Genie app and it is showing the powerline devices pairing and with a good speed (250Mbps).
The PHY link - being Ethernet, Powerline, Fiber, whatever - establishment and retaining is complete independent of the transport of frames. 10BASE-T used regular link pulses, 100BASE-T uses a constant signal, 1000BASE-T and up uses pule bursts, powerline has it's own schemes, defined by the standard resp. de-facto standard makers of Homeplug, Homeplug AV, .... Further on, there is no specific "trunking"-link indication, the devices can send and receive alas they can exchange frames while the bi-directional link(s) are up on both sides.
Low level features like STP (part of the 802.1d standard), RSTP (evolved from .1d to 802.11w). So yes, as the Powerline does connect two network segments, it's a bridge as per 802.1d - and it _will_ pass this kind of low level traffic on the untagged network.
A trunk or trunking does logically not exist, and it's not kid of a protocol or the like. It's a nickname for link or an aggregation group combining multiple links, carrying frames belonging to one or multiple logical networks (VLANs), where for differentiation the traffic of one network can be sent untagged, the PVID does define the VLAN where incoming untagged frames will be assigned to, and for each other network (VLAN) four bytes are added to the Ethernet header carrying the VLAN ID. That's part of 802.1q.
It's up to the implementation of the bridge if it's strict on using untagged frames only, and ignoring 802.1q tagged headers, or forwarding these.
Simple test: Reconfigure one of your tagged VLANs to be handled untagged, and define the PVID where the switch config on both ends requires. If this does pass that VLAN frames, but not the tagged VLAN frames, the bridges (here the two powerline devices) are dropping the frames..
The powerline bridge core does come from the powerline chip maker. The device maker can choose how the bridge will be implemented, e.g. allowing or denying 802.1q tagged frames, probably very early versions did not had support for the 802.1q Ethernet frame extension.
If the data sheets does not explicitly mention supporting 802.1q, it's well possible that tagged frames will be silently dropped - simply because the product management had not defined the 802.1q frame support.
As Netgear does see their consumer powerline devices as buy and run - like a non-managed switch - and offered very few updates, they consider these products as plug and forget. No doubts, Netgear could chage the device config, and update the Homeplug or Homeplug AV bridge core, and change it's default config.
That's why some powerline maker devices are supporting 802.1q, while others (like I'd tend to say the Netgear ones) don't.
7 Replies
Hi,
Is there anyone from Netgear support who could be so kind to explain whether the Netgear powerline devices support or not the standards 802.1D and 802.1Q? It is not that difficult question except if you dont like to tell customers it is not supported...
Nevermind, I will try another way without using these great not that transparent devices...
Regards,
Sorry for butting-in.. I have no anwers, but a Q: How do I use Genie to query the connection between powerline devices?
Hi,
No problem at all, once you install it, connect the PC directly to the powerline device and open the Netgear Genie app.
On the main app menu, press "Network map" and you will see on the top right corner of the map a list of buttons in order to choose the network device where you like to perform the test. If you wait a moment, you will see that the netgear powerline device pair will appear and there you can test the speed between the powerline devices and also, change the encryption key.
Hope it helps you,
Regards,
Mario
mvlvigo wrote:- If I connect the two switches with the powerline devices using trunking, there is no connection despite the lights are green so both powerline devices see each other but no traffic at all.
I installed the Netgear Genie app and it is showing the powerline devices pairing and with a good speed (250Mbps).
The PHY link - being Ethernet, Powerline, Fiber, whatever - establishment and retaining is complete independent of the transport of frames. 10BASE-T used regular link pulses, 100BASE-T uses a constant signal, 1000BASE-T and up uses pule bursts, powerline has it's own schemes, defined by the standard resp. de-facto standard makers of Homeplug, Homeplug AV, .... Further on, there is no specific "trunking"-link indication, the devices can send and receive alas they can exchange frames while the bi-directional link(s) are up on both sides.
Low level features like STP (part of the 802.1d standard), RSTP (evolved from .1d to 802.11w). So yes, as the Powerline does connect two network segments, it's a bridge as per 802.1d - and it _will_ pass this kind of low level traffic on the untagged network.
A trunk or trunking does logically not exist, and it's not kid of a protocol or the like. It's a nickname for link or an aggregation group combining multiple links, carrying frames belonging to one or multiple logical networks (VLANs), where for differentiation the traffic of one network can be sent untagged, the PVID does define the VLAN where incoming untagged frames will be assigned to, and for each other network (VLAN) four bytes are added to the Ethernet header carrying the VLAN ID. That's part of 802.1q.
It's up to the implementation of the bridge if it's strict on using untagged frames only, and ignoring 802.1q tagged headers, or forwarding these.
Simple test: Reconfigure one of your tagged VLANs to be handled untagged, and define the PVID where the switch config on both ends requires. If this does pass that VLAN frames, but not the tagged VLAN frames, the bridges (here the two powerline devices) are dropping the frames..
The powerline bridge core does come from the powerline chip maker. The device maker can choose how the bridge will be implemented, e.g. allowing or denying 802.1q tagged frames, probably very early versions did not had support for the 802.1q Ethernet frame extension.
If the data sheets does not explicitly mention supporting 802.1q, it's well possible that tagged frames will be silently dropped - simply because the product management had not defined the 802.1q frame support.
As Netgear does see their consumer powerline devices as buy and run - like a non-managed switch - and offered very few updates, they consider these products as plug and forget. No doubts, Netgear could chage the device config, and update the Homeplug or Homeplug AV bridge core, and change it's default config.
That's why some powerline maker devices are supporting 802.1q, while others (like I'd tend to say the Netgear ones) don't.
Thank you very much schumaku, it was a great answer and really helpful.
Regards,
Mario
schumaku wrote:
mvlvigo wrote:- If I connect the two switches with the powerline devices using trunking, there is no connection despite the lights are green so both powerline devices see each other but no traffic at all.
I installed the Netgear Genie app and it is showing the powerline devices pairing and with a good speed (250Mbps).
The PHY link - being Ethernet, Powerline, Fiber, whatever - establishment and retaining is complete independent of the transport of frames. 10BASE-T used regular link pulses, 100BASE-T uses a constant signal, 1000BASE-T and up uses pule bursts, powerline has it's own schemes, defined by the standard resp. de-facto standard makers of Homeplug, Homeplug AV, .... Further on, there is no specific "trunking"-link indication, the devices can send and receive alas they can exchange frames while the bi-directional link(s) are up on both sides.
Low level features like STP (part of the 802.1d standard), RSTP (evolved from .1d to 802.11w). So yes, as the Powerline does connect two network segments, it's a bridge as per 802.1d - and it _will_ pass this kind of low level traffic on the untagged network.
A trunk or trunking does logically not exist, and it's not kid of a protocol or the like. It's a nickname for link or an aggregation group combining multiple links, carrying frames belonging to one or multiple logical networks (VLANs), where for differentiation the traffic of one network can be sent untagged, the PVID does define the VLAN where incoming untagged frames will be assigned to, and for each other network (VLAN) four bytes are added to the Ethernet header carrying the VLAN ID. That's part of 802.1q.
It's up to the implementation of the bridge if it's strict on using untagged frames only, and ignoring 802.1q tagged headers, or forwarding these.
Simple test: Reconfigure one of your tagged VLANs to be handled untagged, and define the PVID where the switch config on both ends requires. If this does pass that VLAN frames, but not the tagged VLAN frames, the bridges (here the two powerline devices) are dropping the frames..
The powerline bridge core does come from the powerline chip maker. The device maker can choose how the bridge will be implemented, e.g. allowing or denying 802.1q tagged frames, probably very early versions did not had support for the 802.1q Ethernet frame extension.
If the data sheets does not explicitly mention supporting 802.1q, it's well possible that tagged frames will be silently dropped - simply because the product management had not defined the 802.1q frame support.
As Netgear does see their consumer powerline devices as buy and run - like a non-managed switch - and offered very few updates, they consider these products as plug and forget. No doubts, Netgear could chage the device config, and update the Homeplug or Homeplug AV bridge core, and change it's default config.
That's why some powerline maker devices are supporting 802.1q, while others (like I'd tend to say the Netgear ones) don't.
