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KWheelerAZ's avatar
KWheelerAZ
Aspirant
Jan 09, 2013

XAVB5201, GS105E, and VLAN's

I just wanted to post this in hopes someone else might find it useful.

I had a network installation for a business in a historic old house. As such, we were not allowed to drill holes and run CAT5e without going through a long committee approval process. But at the same time I needed a way to run the cable company Internet feed from the entry point in the basement, up to the ground floor to the FVS318N firewall, and then post-firewall back downstairs to a basement office.

Initially I tried doing this via 802.11gn wireless, but the floors kept interfering with the signal and causing drop outs and wildly variant connection speeds. So I purposed to employ a new & better solution (if I could) ... powerline.

So I purchased 2 XAVB5201 kits (4 total units) and deployed them at each location needing network access. I also reset the factory security key on each unit. As I only needed 3 actual locations, I then deployed 3 GS105E ProSafe Plus switches. I configured the switches to have 2 VLAN's each using the Advanced 802.1Q feature; one for the raw unfiltered Internet feed, and one for the post-firewall filtered feed.

It took a few notes and some restarts to get it configured just right, but the final install works flawlessly. By using the Advanced 802.1Q feature in the GS105E's I'm able to establish VLAN's and assign ports and PVID's to each of the affected ports on the switch. Also, because I configured all 3 switches to "see" both networks even if they don't participate per se I can "see" all three switches from a management workstation using the ProSafe Plus Utility AND also "see" all the powerline devices using the Netgear PowerLine Utility.

An elegant solution to an in-elegant world. Post question if you wish and I'll try to answer. :)