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I'm new to both switches and powerline ethernet, so please treat this question as a layman's question.
In our office, we use a switch to increase the number of ethernet ports:
[Modem]
|
[Router (4 ports)] Asus RT-N66U
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[Switch (16 ports)] NETGEAR GS116Ev2 Managed Switch
| | | | |
[PC1] [PC2] [PC3] [PC4] [PCn] PC's, printers, etc.
Everything works great. We recently acquired the adjacent office, but due external circumstances, meant that we had to use powerline ethernet to connect up the second office to our switch.
We connected the powerline adapter (TP-Link TL-PA8030PKIT 3-Port Gigabit Passthrough Powerline Starter Kit) to the wall socket, and then to the switch, thus:
[Modem]
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[Router (4 ports)]
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[Switch (16 ports)]
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[PC1] [PC2] [PC3] [PC4] [PowerLine Adapter] ------ [PowerLine Adapter]
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[PC5 Office 2]
This worked until one of the following happened:
- Powerline plug was powered off/on
- Switch was powered off/on
At that point, every single device on the network lost its network connection. Devices couldn't "find" the router, nor other devices on the network, nor the internet.
We then reconnected the powerline adapter to the router, bypassing the switch:
[Modem]
|
[Router (4 ports)]
| |
[Switch (16 ports)] [PowerLine Adapter] ---- [PowerLine Adapter]
| | | | |
[PC1] [PC2] [PC3] [PC4] [PC5 Office 2]
That has worked fine. The question is what this might be? I assumed that it might be a DNS issue, but the switch is supposed to be plug-and-play (not requiring configuration), and DHCP Mode was set to "Disable" in settings.
Can anyone offer any suggestions on what could have caused this?
Update
It appears the router itself (via the management interface) claims it is not connected to the internet, despite all other devices being plugged into it not have a problem.
I attach a screengrab of the interface, in case there's anything obvious set incorrectly:
EvilDr
Posted 2018-02-12T11:29:27.867
Reputation: 147
Did this happen multiple times? (It seems it may of due to the listed 'one of these happened'). If the Powerline adaptors are level 3 devices (i.e they have an IP) are you accidentally setting them up as a gateway or dhcp server when you haven't meant to? – djsmiley2k TMW – 2018-02-12T12:07:32.737
Interesting question. This happened three times, which forced me to reconfigure as per the final diagram. The adapters do not appear to have any interface for configuration. They have no IP address (at least according to the router); instead I see the IP of the device in the second room that connects via them - almost as if they are transparent on the network map. – EvilDr – 2018-02-12T12:11:34.297
Well that mean they are just layer two, the only other thing I can come up with is a bug in either the switch, or the Powerline adaptors that caused the mac-address table of the switch to believe that all connected interfaces were on whichever port the powerline adapters were connected to.
This is partal;ly while you wouldn't normally use something like powerline in a business environment. – djsmiley2k TMW – 2018-02-12T12:14:21.417
as a powerline user - they're mostly transparent to your system. And that's mostly the topology I use, so... that's strange. almost feels like you created a routing loop somehow, but that shouldn't happen. – Journeyman Geek – 2018-02-12T12:23:52.663
You mentioned your switch is managed. Are you able to pull any logs from it? – Burgi – 2018-02-12T12:34:08.910
Did you check how reliable is the power supply of the building? Fluctuations might cause funny effects on the network to which the switch may be more vulnerable than the router, especially at the stage where the powerline introduces itself into the network or the switch is booting and discovering the network. Maybe you should try other powerline adapters. – harrymc – 2018-02-12T12:41:14.240
Powerline issues won't take out the network. Just that segment would go down, and you can tell from the lights. Hmm. @EvilDr what adaptors? I might have a handy tool that works with more common flavours of homeplug which might be useful – Journeyman Geek – 2018-02-12T13:04:06.843
@JourneymanGeek The make and model are in the OP, if that helps – EvilDr – 2018-02-12T13:13:40.517
@Burgi Annoyingly, there appears to be no interface option to view the logs. I also notice that the router itself claims it cannot connect to the "registration page", which I believe is an external web page. I've added a screengrab of the main page. Perhaps somebody will notice something amiss... – EvilDr – 2018-02-12T13:28:17.163
You are not using the latest firmware for the switch : Yours is 2.0.1.26 while the latest is 2.0.1.40 (download link). Maybe a later version will better deal with your powerline adapters.
– harrymc – 2018-02-12T14:41:26.103@Tim_Stewart only about 10m. If it was noise, why wouldn't the problem occur now, when the adapters are connected direct to the router? That's the part that confuses me – EvilDr – 2018-02-13T09:28:57.693
@harrymc The router, switch and adapters all have the latest firmware. – EvilDr – 2018-02-13T09:29:26.053
Have you installed a later version than the one in the image? – harrymc – 2018-02-13T09:34:44.080
Yes, I did the screen grab then went to look for the firmware later when it was suggested – EvilDr – 2018-02-13T18:00:47.507