Ive read and watched a few tutorials on VLans for unraid and its mentioned that you either need a managed switch or use 2 seperate switches.

I'm confused as to which scenario applies to me.

I have a router (which is considered a managed switch I suppose) with 4 ports:
Port 1 leads to a dummy switch which contains my unrraid server and a bunch of computers.  These are on Vlan1 (192.168.1.x)
Port 4 leads to a POE switch which has a few CCTV cameras on it.  I have configured my router to have port 4 on vlan 3 (192.168.3.x)

See picture for an easier understanding

So now when it comes to using an unraid do I use the Vlan setting?  How is Unraid supposed to use Vlans and connect to stuff on Vlan 3 when its physically plugged into port 1 and getting a vlan1 IP from my router?  Wouldn't only devices connected through Port 4 on my router be able to get onto Vlan 3?  Or do I need to connect a second NIC to my unraid server and run a cable from my POE switch (Connected to port 4 on the router) to give a second IP to unraid thats on the vlan?

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by 007craft

In your setup above, the VLANs are assigned to a port, which means your Unraid has only presence in VLAN 1 and can access other devices directly which reside in VLAN 1 too (your left switch).

 

For Unraid to access the devices in VLAN 3 it has to go via the router, and it does NOT need any VLAN configuration on the server itself

In this scenario all devices both in VLAN 1 and VLAN 3 must use the router as their default gateway to make connectivity possible.

The switches themselves do not require any configuration (in other words use unmanaged switches), your router keeps them segregated.

 

In case you want Unraid to access devices in VLAN 3 (right switch) directly, you can add a second interface to your Unraid server and give it an IP address in 192.168.3.x and connect it to the right switch, again no VLANs are required here.

 

A different approach is to make use of so called trunks, this approach uses a single physical connection which can carry multiple logical connections (VLANs). When Unraid is configured with additional VLANs, it requires a switch which supports trunking too. This means your switch needs to be configured (managed) to tell exactly which VLANs are going to be used and how. This requires more (network) knowledge and planning.