VLAN Help Needed

[jharvey1029]

Hello All,

I've been trailing the internet looking for someone in a similar situation to myself. I'm completely new to VLANs, but I need to create two VLANs in my home environment. I'm looking to put an AP on our back porch to extend the internet access and to improve the signal strength etc. However I want to separate (IPs) connected devices inside the house from devices connected outside, while still being able to access the media server, which is inside the house. I dont even know if its possible with the equipment I have. I have the following equipment.

1x Dell Switch PowerConnect 2716 - 16 Port Gigabit (supports VLANs)
1x NetGear Wireless Router - standard (no vlan options within) will be the outside wireless AP
1x Standard Comcast wireless router - Main internet source. (no vlan options within)

After looking online, I've looked at the options within my Dell switch, but I'm so confused by things such as:
VLAN Membership
VLAN port settings

What I'm looking for is someone to assist me with configuring each device so that IP's will be separated from devices that are connected on the porch from devices inside the house.

I would appreciate all the help on this.

Thanks

James

 

[choucove]

The biggest problem I see is that you do not have any sort of device here that can actually route between the VLANs. You need to either have a Layer 3 switch or have a router that can run multiple networks, which most wireless routers will not do.

 

[jharvey1029]

The biggest problem I see is that you do not have any sort of device here that can actually route between the VLANs. You need to either have a Layer 3 switch or have a router that can run multiple networks, which most wireless routers will not do.

Thank you for your reply. Just for my own understanding, can you explain why, with the equipment I have, wont it work? I'm just building a picture in my head so that I have a clear understanding.

 

[choucove]

A home wireless router is capable of routing between a single LAN network and the outside WAN internet, but what you are wanting to do is actually run two internal LAN networks, each on a separate VLAN, which cannot be done with just a single home wireless router.

A layer 3 switch is capable of routing based on IP addresses, which means it can pass traffic back and forth across different VLANs where a layer 2 switch can only tell that a packet is coming from a device on a VLAN but cannot direct it to another VLAN. The problem with a layer 3 switch is it will not have NAT capabilities which might be necessary. You need an actual router for this.

You can route through two separate networks using home routers, but you would need three. One will be the default gateway for VLAN A, while the second will be the default gateway for VLAN B. Each of those routers would then have their WAN interfaces connected to the LAN ports of the third and final router, which would be the primary device for passing traffic back and forth to the other VLAN and also out to the internet.

This tends to get a little messy, though, and by that time you might as well just get a router capable of running multiple LAN zones instead of just a single LAN like most home routers.