I’m looking for some help from those who are a little more familiar with (computer) networking than I am.
Until now, our home network has been relatively simple, running off of an Airport Extreme base station, which has three physical LAN ports.
WAN }---> [cable] }---> [AE] }-\---> iMac (wired)
[modem] . \--> iMac (wired)
. \-> printer (wired)
.
......> various WiFi devices
(two iPhones, one iPad,
one MacBook, one Roku)
One of the fun things about our new house is that it’s actually fully networked with Cat-6 cabling, with six two-port jacks on each of the two floors. All the cabling runs into an upstairs closet. In the closet, a 24-port patch bay is set up so that the lower port of each jack leads to an open data port, and the upper port is hooked into a POTS patchboard. Since I’m not hooking up a POTS line, I can easily disconnect the POTS patch cords, opening up a total of 24 network jacks around the house (serious overkill, I’m sure…but damn it’s cool to have this built in to my home!).
On the basic assumption that whenever possible, wired is better than wireless, I’d like to be able to physically wire in as many devices as is possible. At this point, that’s four (two iMacs, the printer, and the Roku). However, I can only currently get three wired in at a time (by running cables from the AE’s three LAN ports into three ports on the patch bay). Since all of the above devices (save one old iMac) are WiFi capable, this isn’t a critical issue — I can just leave one to run wirelessly, and wire the other three in — but I’d like to get all four on wires…and if possible, allow for possible future growth or configurability.
What I think I need to do is add a switch (like this) to the network. However, I’ve not played with switches before — just home routers.
If I were to add this switch, could I just plug the AE into one port, all my other devices into other ports, and have everything still “just work” (to borrow Apple’s language)?
WAN }---> [cable] }---> [AE] }---{ [switch] }-\-----> iMac
[modem] . \----> iMac
. \---> printer
. \--> Roku
. \-> (theoretical
. future devices)
.
....> various WiFi devices
In the current setup, the AE acts as DHCP router, assigning internal IPs to all my devices. Would the switch recognize this and still shuttle traffic around without my having to do anything? Or would I need to switch my internal wired network to assigned IP addresses so that the switch knows where to send traffic? Am I even asking the right questions? Am I overthinking this?
Help! I have new toys, and I don’t know how to play with them!