cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/12597342
Okay, I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos about switches and I’ve just made myself more confused. Managed versus unmanaged seems to be having a GUI versus not having a GUI, but why would anyone want a GUI on a switch? Shouldn’t your router do that? Also, a switch is like a tube station for local traffic, essentially an extension lead, so why do some have fans?
L2/L3 (managed) switches can do things like LAGG (link aggregation) so you can use multiple ports to combine traffic. This is the main reason (oh and the other end has to understand LAGG too for it to work.) It has nothing to do with VLAN or any of that shit (port based VLAN is though)
The other things are doing QOS at the switch (mainly for more complex environments) and stuff like that.
Sure, L2/L3 switches offer DHCP/DNS/VLAN/Monitoring/network security but these are not generally used these days (firewall has it covered). But there is still Multicast/Spanning tree etc that are useful.
So now I’m struggling to figure out what the router actually does. Since all the complexity seems to happen at the switch level.
Some of what others have posted is correct, and others are misleading.
A router is a device that can take your WAN connection (be it ADSL/ADSL2/coax/fibre) and convert the signal WITH a built in MODEM for that particular signal to usable network data (ie packets on RJ45). In the case of fibre, you might even need a fibre-RJ45 converter even before the router.
These routers are often collection of devices to make it convenient to consumers. They will often have a small unmanaged switch of 4 ports, probably WIFI of some flavour, a SIMPLE firewall/DHCP/QoS ability. Routers are sometimes required because what the ISP sends you is not straight “internet”, it might be encapsulated in PPP or similar, and may require you to use credentials to access as well.
Routers have a lot in common to a L3 switch, an fact they basically are the same with one key difference, which is what I first said - a Router device supports different types of WAN interfaces, a L3 switch only deals with RJ45/Fibre type ports.
A proper network would generally be: Internet - Router - Firewall - L2/L3 Switch ---- clients
The link below ignores the firewall because its focusing on what the devices are, but it would be after the router and before the first switch.
https://www.networkstraining.com/router-vs-switch-in-networks/
Thank you very much. I feel like my knowledge is going Super Saiyan!