Unmanaged gigabit ethernet switch with modes

[yoyoma2]

Hi networking experts (of which I am not),

TLDR: Which switch mode should I use in a mixed home network?

I bought an unmanaged 16-port gigabit switch online that has no documentation. It has a three position switch labelled in Chinese which seems to mean (standard, clone, isolation). It seems to work fine in standard mode but I googled to see what the other modes do and found this similar switch manual with four modes.

• M1 Networking clone – Closed flow control on all ports to resolve speed drops in 10/100/1000Mbps mixed networks.
• M2 Standard – Open flow control on all ports. Full gigabit switch capabilities in order to be used as a central switch. This is the default setting.
• M3 Port trunking – Ports 23 and 24 act as a link aggregation group (static convergence: source MAC + destination MAC). Increases uplink bandwidth and reduces uplink bottlenecks to prevent data congestion.
• M4 Port isolation – Ports 1-22 become isolated from each other. Ports 23 and 24 are the convergence of the upper joint. This mode can isolate broadcast storms, prevent ARP and DHCP spoofing, enhance network transmission rate and security. This mode is mainly used for internet cafes, schools, businesses and public networks

Other than M3 trunking mode, the other three modes match my switch. The isolation mode is for internet cafes and I'm at home... but the clone mode could be interesting as I do have mixed 1000/100 Mbps. I read your excellent article When Flow Control is not a Good Thing to learn about flow control. The article says "You can’t do this by changing to a different unmanaged gigabit switch, since all of them support 802.3x flow control, which can’t be disabled.". Am I wrong or does clone mode turn off flow control on all ports? Why would they call this clone mode if it disables flow control?

Question: Should I leave it on standard mode or use clone mode?

Bonus question: Help me understand trunking and isolation modes.

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @yoyoma2.

Use Standard mode for maximum throughput speeds. Be sure to flash any official firmware to the latest available for the switch you have. Port Isolation mode isn't valuable for you if you want a network of connected devices. It may be if you want all your wired capable devices on their own (effectively) networks though.

Port Trunking mode, (i.e. LAG) is worthwhile only when connected to another LAG-capable device (another switch, NAS, etc.). It will effectively double the network's bandwidth capacity in total (but not to any single device).

For the Networking Clone mode, you'll have to refer to the instructions for your specific router, for further details.

 

[Tech Junky]

Standard should negotiate speed for all devices

Trunking/isolation in this sense allows segregated traffic to flow throw the trunk ports but not to adjacent ports

Trunking allows you to bundle the two interfaces for a faster uplink speed for all of the other ports. On this one it would provide 2ge instead of 1ge. In higher end switches these would probably be 10ge ports so the other ports would not be bottlenecked if they're saturated.

Clone might be a bad translation. Seems more like it might be a loopback option for testing the link to verify the cable is good.

 

[follower]

Hi networking experts (of which I am not),

TLDR: Which switch mode should I use in a mixed home network?

I bought an unmanaged 12-port gigabit switch online that has no documentation. It has a three position switch labelled in Chinese which seems to mean (standard, clone, isolation). It seems to work fine in standard mode but I googled to see what the other modes do and found this similar switch manual with four modes.

• M1 Networking clone – Closed flow control on all ports to resolve speed drops in 10/100/1000Mbps mixed networks.
• M2 Standard – Open flow control on all ports. Full gigabit switch capabilities in order to be used as a central switch. This is the default setting.
• M3 Port trunking – Ports 23 and 24 act as a link aggregation group (static convergence: source MAC + destination MAC). Increases uplink bandwidth and reduces uplink bottlenecks to prevent data congestion.
• M4 Port isolation – Ports 1-22 become isolated from each other. Ports 23 and 24 are the convergence of the upper joint. This mode can isolate broadcast storms, prevent ARP and DHCP spoofing, enhance network transmission rate and security. This mode is mainly used for internet cafes, schools, businesses and public networks

Other than M3 trunking mode, the other three modes match my switch. The isolation mode is for internet cafes and I'm at home... but the clone mode could be interesting as I do have mixed 1000/100 Mbps. I read your excellent article When Flow Control is not a Good Thing to learn about flow control. The article says "You can’t do this by changing to a different unmanaged gigabit switch, since all of them support 802.3x flow control, which can’t be disabled.". Am I wrong or does clone mode turn off flow control on all ports? Why would they call this clone mode if it disables flow control?

Question: Should I leave it on standard mode or use clone mode?

Bonus question: Help me understand trunking and isolation modes.

M1 Networking clone – Flow Control is disabled. You don't need it. It's not for you.
M2 Standard – Use this.
M3 Port trunking – Link Aggregation. You don't need it. It's not for you.
M4 Port isolation – VLAN. You don't need it. It's not for you.

 

[yoyoma2]

Thank you all for the accurate/educational information. I'll stick to standard mode as you suggest.

Clone mode does appear to be a bad translation.

Another gigabit switch manual in Chinese had a topology figure for cloning mode ( 网络克隆模式 ). It looks like you connect a server computer to one port and multiple client computers to other ports and clone the server (OS, patches, software???) to the clients. Is this a known feature of switches for SOHO to install/update multiple computers at once?

 

[tgl]

Clone mode does appear to be a bad translation.

Only a shot in the dark here ... but I just bought a managed switch that has something it calls "port mirroring" mode; could that be what this is talking about? The manual says it's useful for debugging: you can copy a port's traffic to another "monitor" port for traffic-sniffing purposes.

I remember how back in the bad old days of 10Mbps ethernet hubs (not switches) you could easily sniff all the traffic on your LAN, and how that went away with the advent of switches that wouldn't squirt packets out any port they weren't specifically destined for. So I can see that this'd have some uses. On the other hand, I haven't missed that ability since I retired my ethernet hub.

 

[follower]

Thank you all for the accurate/educational information. I'll stick to standard mode as you suggest.

Clone mode does appear to be a bad translation.

Another gigabit switch manual in Chinese had a topology figure for cloning mode ( 网络克隆模式 ). It looks like you connect a server computer to one port and multiple client computers to other ports and clone the server (OS, patches, software???) to the clients. Is this a known feature of switches for SOHO to install/update multiple computers at once?

It's for packet capture(sniffing). You can capture and monitor all the traffic. How to use it? You connect a Laptop or a PC to a mirrored(cloned) port. You run packet capture tools like Wireshark or any other network monitoring tools. You can see all the network traffic. But the problem is your network will be slowed.

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok, so the op version of clone mode sounds like a pxe boot for staging multiple systems.

Mirroring / tap mode as @tgl mentioned is for sniffing or monitoring. It doesn't necessarily slow things down but, it's for a specific use.

 

[yoyoma2]

Ok, so the op version of clone mode sounds like a pxe boot for staging multiple systems.

Yes PXE boot mode sounds exaclty like what their clone mode is. Thanks @Tech Junky! There might be some setting/optimization in Standard mode that causes PXE boot to fail so they have a "clone" mode for it.

I'm sticking with standard mode but you guys taught me a bunch of things... thanks!

 

[Tech Junky]

clone mode

Seems like the switch will act as a stand alone device for cloning in that mode. Kind of an adhoc setup to isolate things from the production network. Nothing a $10 gigabit switch couldn't do though. Sometimes the knock off devices add functions that just don't make much sense. Since it's unmanaged it doesn't need all of the options the toggle switch enables.

I'm a fan of deviating from the norm but, this just doesn't make much sense. I suppose they thought someone had a need and added the function though for a niche case. Though for the right price enabling the isolation/trunk option could be a money saver for those that don't want to pay up for a managed switch nor deal with vlans to segregate traffic properly. I'm a bit leery though about things that automagically enable settings / features. If it's transparent and able to be monitored to prove there's nothing else going on then it's a potential winner.

 

[follower]

Ok, so the op version of clone mode sounds like a pxe boot for staging multiple systems.

Mirroring / tap mode as @tgl mentioned is for sniffing or monitoring. It doesn't necessarily slow things down but, it's for a specific use.

That's also mirroring. Flow control should be disabled when we use port mirroring. Mirroring with a switch is not good actually, home use is just ok though. If a switch is overloaded you may lose packets because of software mirroring. That's why we use sa TAP device. These cheap switches don't have TAP in it. It's just switch mirroring.

 

[yoyoma2]

Not exactly my switch but in Section 2.1.2 page 4 is the topology of network clone mode ( 网络克隆模式 ). One clone server, multiple (2) clone client workstations and multiple (...) unrelated (non-clone) workstations. Google translate of the related text comes up with "Any port" so it couldn't be mirroring one single port to another single port?

Microsoft says "Important: The PXE protocol isn't secure. Make sure that the PXE server and the PXE client are located on a physically secure network, such as in a data center, to prevent unauthorized access to your site."

Could the switch's stand alone clone mode have something to do with PXE security?

 

[Deleted member 84281]

Be sure to flash any official firmware to the latest available for the switch you have.

He said it is a unmanaged switch there is no firmware.

 

[yoyoma2]

He said it is a unmanaged switch there is no firmware.

That's a relief, I couldn't find any firmware.

 

[L&LD]

Sometimes, there is though. Doesn't hurt to check.