Uplink Port

Hello to all,

A friend at work has a Draytek Vigor 2600 Firewall router in one room, which I assume is providing the internet access.

In another room they have a patch panel which has a connection to an 8-port Linksys switch, which in turn is connected to the uplink port of a 4-port D-link router (this appears to be an older model). All ports on the Linksys are being used, but the 4-ports on the router are still free.

Also, connected directly to the patch panel is a 16-port 10BASE-T hub. Only 3 of the LAN ports are being used. This 10BASE-T hub is not connected to the Linksys switch or D-link router.

I wondered if the D-link router which has the uplink port being used, is actually just being used as a switch, and also if the 10BASE-T hub can be removed, and any cables from this be connected to the LAN ports of the D-link router, apart from port 1.

Many thanks,
Jeff

 

Hi Jeff,

If there are only 3 computers(won't expand anymore) connect to the 10baseT hub, and all ports of D-link are free, you can remove the hub and move them to D-link router.

On D-link, you can use one of the 4 local ports as the uplink port.

or

you can use the uplink port as the uplink port.But, you have to manage 2 ip segments.

 

The three workstations connected to the 16 port 10-base T switch are isolated from the Linksys and D-Link for some reason. Obviously these three workstations are not to be physically accessible from all the other workstations on this network.

Moving their cables to either the D-Link or Linksys defeats this purpose.

Let me say a note about Uplink Ports.

The reason for them is so that you only require one cable type in your wiring closet -- straight-thru patch cables.

Anymore the uplink port is being replace by autoconfiguring ports that sense cable type and role, and configure themselves appropriately.

Uplink ports are nothing magical; using a cross-over cable between two regular LAN ports accomplishes the same thing. They have nothing to do with segmenting or subnetting a network.

They are a cabling convenience only.

 

Thanks to Jason and Bill for your excellent support and quick answers.

Jeff