On Sat, 2012-10-13 at 12:30 -0400, Fred Goldstein wrote: > I've enjoyed it. I still hope somebody at some point figures out > just how close you can get to an MEF-type switch using RouterOS or > AirOS. Or EdgeOS, Real Soon Now. (They're all Linux under the skin, > after all.)
It can be done (sort of) in Linux. Which, of course, RouterOS has at it's core. The problem, though, is that Mikrotik's software is called RotuerOS for a reason. These devices are built to be routers. While what you are talking about is (at some levels) a hybrid of routing (at layer 2) and switching. I realize that is an oversimplification, but bear with me. RouterOS is certainly capable of doing much of what you want, but it is not intended to behave as a switch. It will, however, have to do it in software, which IS bridging. You can, for example, create the following configurations: Ether1 - "trunk" port for vlans 10,20,30 Ether2 - Untagged traffic for vlan10 Ether3 - Tagged for vlan20 vlan30 is for managment of the device The vlans would be configured as: vlan 10 - created on ether1 only (E1V10) vlan 20 - created on ether1 (E1V20) and ether3 (E3V20) vlan 30 - created on ether1 only (E1V30) Now for the software "routing" configuration. You need a bridge device that includes the following: bvlan10 - includes E1V10 and ether2 bvlan20 - includes E1V20 and E3V20 bvlan30 - (management) includes E1V30 only This configuration, while it uses bridges to "tie" the ports together, would not send broadcast traffic between bridges. Even on the trunk port side (ether1). IP addressing would be on the bridge devices (if you want them to be visible at layer 3). Obviously, bvlan30 would need an address. Strictly speaking, you could simply eliminate the bridge for vlan30 and add the layer 3 stuff at E1V30, but personally, I like the consistent behavior of allowing the bridges to be the communication interface. Because RouterOS is designed to be a router and not a switch, the ability to create a port that handles both tagged and untagged traffic becomes rather ugly. It can be done, but it is a horribly ugly configuration and it uses bridges. This, of course, depends somewhat on exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Because of the limitations of the backend software and the design purpose of that software, RouterOS would work fine at certain places in a CE network, but it certainly doesn't fit at the core. The same is true of other routers. -- ******************************************************************** * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation * * http://www.butchevans.com/ * Network Engineering * * http://store.wispgear.net/ * Wired or Wireless Networks * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * ImageStream, Mikrotik and MORE! * * NOTE THE NEW PHONE NUMBER: 702-537-0979 * ******************************************************************** _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list Wireless@wispa.org http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
