uplink port?

[kato2274]

ok general question that I need verification on and don't have hardware right now to test.

I have 2 switches. one has the uplink port, and one does not. I can uplink these using a crossover cable and non uplink ports. . . . . this I know. but if I use the uplink port from the one switch and a regular old port from the other switch, do these uplink with a straight thru cable?

the reason I'm asking is the place I'm going to be working with has two floors and on the bottom floor they already have one computer that is connected. they want to add at least one more probably two. I replaced their 5 port linksys switch (the one that has the uplink port) with a switch that just have 16 ports. so I'm thinking in order to avoid have to run cable through the floors/ceilings I may just put the extra switch back in the mix. If I have to cut the cable and pin it out for crossover then recrimp I'll do it, but if I can use that cable with no modification whatsover that would be ideal.

just need verification that the uplink port should work as I'm thinking it will.

[rgharper]

On most switches/hubs I've worked on with an uplink port, you use a straight-through cable from the uplink port on that device and connect it to any normal port on the other device.

[craigmodius]

As you probably already know...

The uplink port should need a strait thru to do it's thing.

If you are putting a device with no uplink port in it's place you should need a cross over.

but...

If you are thinking of uplinking the 16 port to the linksys 5 port then uplink from there (to upstairs?) then I would say that seems unnecessarily complicated.

Yes it's a simple extra hop, but if something isn't working some day five weeks from now the PC has to ping the 16 port switch then ping the linksys 5 port switch then ping upstairs. In other words if the linksys box fails or has a brain fart then you have to contend with that extra hop.

Seems like you should just repin that one side of the cable to make it a crossover from the 16 port switch going upstairs. Keep the one side T568B and pin the other one to T568A as illustrated here as I'm sure you know.

[kato2274]

the sixteen port is already upstairs in the closet. the 5 port would be downstairs and piggy backed to the sixteen upstairs using the uplink port.

I'm trying to aviod wall/ceiling runs as much as I possibly can because those type of runs invariably end up taking me a ton of time finding the best route drilling tacking the cable to the wall etc.

If I connect the switches - the 5 downstairs and the 16 upstairs I can avoid making any wall ceiling runs and quite possibly avoid making cables at all since I have lots of premade 25 footers.

I'm just trying to make my life easier as I'm doing this gig pretty cheap.

[rgharper]

<THWOCK!! Faulty memory on my part >

In fact, I did almost exactly that the other day. Our site serves a secondary site via fiber-optic cable, but I needed a couple ports from their side of the router so I could hook up some equipment to their address range. I used a 5-port Linksys 10/100 hub, connected the Linksys to their side of the router with a straight-through cable using the uplink port in the Linksys, then connected their fiber adaper and the PCs to the normal ports. No problems. Their side of the link works just fine and I have three ports in their address range on our campus now.

So yeah, it should work just fine.

[kato2274]

tested it last night with my home network. worked fine. It should save me quite a bit of time/energy. I kinda wish the linksys hub was a switch . . . . but with only 10 computers on the whole network, I don't think it's going to make any difference.