Small Business Networking Goes Virtual

The router that connects the LAN to the Internet is plugged into port 1. As a side note, there was no requirement to make port 1 the router's port. Any port could have been used.

The router needed IEEE 802.1Q support installed so that it would be aware of the four VLANs. The router is configured to route packets between VLANs.

Step 7: Secure the network

A firewall in place would protect the internal VLANs from the outside. The wireless should have WPA security turned on. At this point, the network is up and running, passing information between and across the VLANs. If the machines have Gigabit cards inside, then the port will be working at Gigabit speed.

Step 8: Backup the configuration

Finally, the configuration should be backed up in case of a future problem, or if another switch needs to be deployed with identical configuration. Unlike many other Web-configured networking products, Netgear doesn't allow the configuration to be downloaded from the browser. The only way to get the configuration file is through a TFTP server.

Under the File Management link on the left pane, there is an option to upload files. The File Management pane gives the option to either download a new firmware to the switch or to upload the configuration file off the switch. For this purpose, select the configuration upload option and enter the IP address of the TFTP server. The switch uploads the configuration data and a copy of the firmware.

If there's any reason to think there is a new firmware available, this page can be used to download it onto the switch. The firmware can be downloaded manually and installed using the Smartwizard Discovery program. It can also be copies to the TFTP server, from where the web tool can download and install from the File Management pane.

And that's it -- the switch has been configured to treat the logical VLANs separately. There are monitoring options for anyone worried about how the VLANs are working. Up to eight ports can be used for port mirroring, to forward copies of incoming and outgoing packets from one port to a monitoring port. Port mirroring can be used as a diagnostic tool as well as a debugging feature. Port mirroring also enables switch performance monitoring. The switch is capable of mirroring all transmitted packets, all received packets, or all packets, both transmitted and received.