RB4011iGS: 4 ports as simple L2 switch

RouterOS General
1

Hello,

I have a RB4011iGS that will serve a dual purpuse:

  • router
  • small switch for IPTV

The router part is working, but IPTV part is not.

As far as IPTV goes, I want to have a simple 4-port L2 switch, where I plug cable from ISP modem’s IPTV port to port 1 and IPTV STB to ports 2-4. This works in my current setup with managed L2 switch.

So on Mikrotik, I created a bridge and added these 4 ports to this bridge hoping that was it. But IPTV is not working. There is no picture and no sound, but there is traffic on the ports. If I’m watching a stream on directly connected STB and reconnect via RB4011iGS, the stream is working, but only until I switch to another channel.

/interface bridge
add name=bridge1
/interface bridge port
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether1
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether2
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether3
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether4

Am I going about this the wrong way?
Do I need to configure it differently?
Is what I’m trying to do even possible or do I must go with a dedicated switch?

Thanks, Matej

2

A bridge creates a switch, so it looks like you’re good.

3

Could there be problems with IGMP? It seems like I can watch an active stream (if I change the setup from ISP->STB to ISB->RB4011->STB while the stream is running, I can continue in the new configuration). But as soon as I switch the channel, it won’t start a new stream.

4

Does your ISP provide internet and IPTV on vlans? Typically different vlans!
Multicast IPTV is hard on router CPUs, although the RB4011 is a beast.
The switch method you use is probably the most efficient method as it appears there is no need for routing.

As indicated other than perhaps needing a vlan and or turning on multicast or knowing the priority of traffic setting (some IPTV is picky) your setup looks fine!!
Be advised this is a guess and not a fact!

Edit. If you can try turning off IGMP snooping for just the bridge and see if that improves things.

5

Not that I would know. I have another setup, where I’m using HP 1810 smart switches. I have an untagged port in VLAN X where I plug in the cable from ISP modem, send that VLAN over the trunk port to another switch and send the traffic out untagged again and it works. So I would say the traffic is not tagged from ISP side.

At the moment, IGMP proxy is off. But it doesn’t change much if I enable IGMP snooping. Should I configure something under Routing → IGMP Proxy?
Do I need to enable anything on the firewall to allow this traffic to pass?

6

Not that I am aware of…if the switch is doing it fine, then the question becomes what does the router do differently???
Yes give igmp proxy a try.

7

Well, I figured it out. It was a problem on my side.

I had IP address and DHCP server set on the IPTV bridge. With DHCP server, STB did not get the IP address from ISP. After removing DHCP server config and IP from the bridge, it started working. I don’t even need IGMP proxy / IGMP snooping enabled as it should be a pure L2 config.

8

Yes, and GOOD!!

I have to comment that this is what you provided.
/interface bridge
add name=bridge1
/interface bridge port
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether1
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether2
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether3
add bridge=bridge1 interface=ether4

and thus no way for us to tell. Always best to provide complete config!!
(assuming you know the problem part of the config is an error in of itself LOL)

9

did you see H flag on bridge port for ether1-4 ?
if not, than your bridge work as bridge; not switch
you need to change the bridge protocol to none; not stp or rstp or mstp

P