VPN not allowing internet to go to PoE switch

xcgamer

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Feb 24, 2012
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I am currently the IT chair for my fraternity house. Recently our Adtran NetVanta 1234P went out. Luckily it has a lifetime warranty so I got a new one. I hooked it up exactly how it had been hooked up before. We have the Switch hooked up to a SonicWall NSA 250M. The new switch is not receiving internet from the SonicWall, however a small 4 port netgear that I also have hooked up to the SonicWall still works. I was wondering if there was some sort of initial configuration I have to do so the SonicWall will recognize the new switch. Also someone mentioned to me that PoE switches need to be looped. I have the ethernet looped backed to the SonicWall, so two ports need to be hooked from the SonicWall to the switch. Is that correct?
 
Solution
PoE switches are nothing special they just run a special hardware signaling between that port and the end device. It just allows a end device that need PoE to ask the switch for it. In every other way a PoE switch is no different.

The problem I suspect is this switch can be configured in a number of different ways. It supports vlans as well as basic routing. If the switch was configured as a dumb layer 2 switch then it should just work. It if has multiple tagged vlans or routing configured then you likely also have special configuration in the sonic wall.

I have never used this switch so I can't say what the default configuration is. Most devices default to all ports enabled on a single default vlan with no tagging enabled...
PoE switches are nothing special they just run a special hardware signaling between that port and the end device. It just allows a end device that need PoE to ask the switch for it. In every other way a PoE switch is no different.

The problem I suspect is this switch can be configured in a number of different ways. It supports vlans as well as basic routing. If the switch was configured as a dumb layer 2 switch then it should just work. It if has multiple tagged vlans or routing configured then you likely also have special configuration in the sonic wall.

I have never used this switch so I can't say what the default configuration is. Most devices default to all ports enabled on a single default vlan with no tagging enabled. But since you say a dumb switch works but this one does not it may not be configured that way.

You are very lucky you did not cause a huge loop if you cabled 2 cable between the devices. Very likely the switch had spanning tree enabled by default and blocked one of the 2 cables. There are cases when you can run 2 cable between the firewall and the switch but it is more related to a special design requirement rather than some default cabling.
 
Solution

xcgamer

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Feb 24, 2012
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I just did some surfing and found this article: https://supportforums.adtran.com/thread/1513

It appears the default setting is only 1 VLAN for all switch ports. What we have connected to the switch is 2 wireless routers who need PoE because they are in the ceiling. The rest are wired to wall sockets. I'm new to networking and was just looking up what a VLAN is. Would it be wrong to assume that there needs to be a separate VLAN for each router? If that is the case would i just need to access the console and assign new VLANs for each port the router is connect to on the switch and not change any settings in the SonicWall?

Thanks for the help I have 30 technologically incompetent Fraternity brothers yelling at me to fix their internet.
 
No if everything is set to vlan 1 then it is working as a dumb switch. You need to make sure the port on the sonicwall also just assumes it is a dumb switch. The easy test I suppose would be to unplug the 4 port switch and plug the larger switch on that port. If it works then the issue is a configuration option on the other port in the sonicwall. If it does not work then it is something with the switch. I guess you need to verify the very basic stuff like you get lights when you plug devices into the switch the ports may be turned off in software
 

xcgamer

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Feb 24, 2012
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So I tried hooking the large switch to the same port on the SonicWall the 4 port switch used and I still didn't get internet, I also tried hooking the modem directly into the large switch and still no internet. So something must be wrong with the large switch. It shows activity when I plug the big switch in but still no internet.