Ok, just went through some sites looking for solutions on how I can do a port - trunk metaphor with my Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH router. It turns out that because it uses an Atheros chipset, it doesn't have the ability to separate out the ports from one another. So if I set up a tagged (802.1Q) vlan on one port, all of the ports will have the same tagging applied to them. I wish I had known this when I first bought the router.
Now I have re-arranged my network setup to only have one port into the Buffalo router which will be trunk fed, i.e. all the packets will have tags. I will also be able to have separate DHCP servers for each tagged vlan to put the addresses into separate subnets. The other two routers I have are Linksys WRT54GLs which have Broadcom chipsets and will support the port - trunk metaphor. They are 100MHz ethernet but that is less important in the lower portions of my network. So with a little re-arrangement I have resolved the main issue. Now I can use the Netgear managed switch to force my little vlans to appear.
-- LW
This is a blog mostly about techie things, what I am doing to my apartment network on the cheap, IOT, 3D Printing, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, ESP32, ESP8266, Home Automation, Personal Weather Stations, Things That Go Bump in the Night, and some side issues that need discussing. Remember, sometimes the journey to an end is as much fun as the goal achieved!
