Hard to explain in one subject line I have a fairly good sized meshed network, using OSPF for routing between all subnets.
When I setup equipment from my office (ATA devices, new routers, radios etc) I’d like to be able to plug them in and actually test them before I go out on-site to install them. Not a biggie, but it sure would make some things much nicer.
Can anyone propose the best solution for having .. say.. a minirouter on my desk with each of the ports on a different remote subnet so I can just plug the new device into my desk and program and test it for the remote location it will be installed in.
Hopefully I have explained this properly, for some reason its not coming out too well
If you’re using a private network, then there’s no reason you couldn’t replicate it at your office (change mac address etc to suit authentication of links)
If you’re using a public network then you’d have to set it up as a ‘dummy’ internal network and have one device that see the public ranges as if they are part of your own network (so you could properly test without something trying to route you outside the your actual network).
Hope I’ve made this understandable enough without going into a 2 page reply hehe.
I can’t replicate my network and al the servers on it.
I think you somehow took my question incorrectly. Let me add clarification…
I want to have a local interface on every router on every tower in my office - such that plugging into port #7 put me on the same broadcast LAN as my tower #7 network and customers.
Thanks for the reply, but let me add another piece of info..
I do not want to setup a network resembling my network – I have to use the real thing - not a test bed.
I’ll add a answer to my own question - I just wanted to know if someone did this already and can tell me the best way to proeed. Right now the only way I see this is by configuring vpns to each router at each tower - but I really didn’t want to do that. Hoped there was another magic way.
Hey GWISA… I used to use vlans but changing from switched to routed network put an end to that.
I didn’t think about the eoip, slipped my mind. That may work well. I know its slow but for my purposes it will be fine.
Thanks for the idea - thats why I asked publicly, to make sure I didn’t overlook anything. I could fairly easily take the rb150 I have here on my desk and make a rule to connect a few of the ports to the networks they need to be part of and that would work. I assume EoIP can be configured seperately for each port right? I never have till now used more than 1 EoIP connection per RB.
With RB150 can I make eth1 go to network1 // eth2 go to network2 // eth3 go to network3 assuming of course all networks 1, 2 & 3 are remote MT routers with EoIP setup to talk to the RB150 on my desk?
That might prove useful sometimes… I could even sniff remote networks (within my network) with wireshark on my machine probably. Any more comments before I try to do this. I think it should be apparent what I am trying to accomplish at this point in the thread…
You can still use VLANs if that’s your prferred method, but you’d have to set a tag on every routed node. I’m not sure how this would work in a multi-path network though.
EoIP will be much easier, but as you say a bit slower with more overhead. I’d say this shouldn’t really be an issue if it’s just for network management. And yes - you can set up as many EoIP tunnels as you need (I think). I have sections of our network which connect via EoIP to a central point, with 8 tunnels ending at the start/endpoint. These run over a routed network, and are bridged at the endpoint on their own IP range.
I guess you could also bridge all the tunnels at your endpoint, and just use a different IP range than your routed network.
We have this one programming/testing computer that we use to program everything. We have all the IP gateways on it. Here’s a snippet to see what I mean. It’s not a testbed, just something that can get to everything that might get plugged into it.
I have a fairly good sized meshed network, using OSPF for routing between all subnets.