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Is it a corn dog? Is it a talking hot dog? No! (but you can watch one talk @GeerlingEngineering https://youtu.be/wzDEIBpbLRk?si=M11lu-ch-bjzsWkJ) Its a Router on a Stick! And in this case, its a Raspberry Pi 5 running OpenWrt on a stick. In this episode of Dev Odyssey, we go over the concept of Router on a Stick, why it's used in the industry, how it's used, and of course how to set one up for yourself.
A Router on a Stick is a router with one ethernet controller and corresponding ethernet port. That means on the physical layer, it can only be attached to one network. However, with VLANs, we're able to make this port into WAN and LAN ports, with as many of either network as we want. Therefore, you don't need two ethernet ports for a router as we most often think. This makes a Raspberry Pi perfectly capable of being a full blown router with just one ethernet port! You'll just need to bring your own layer 3 switch to route your VLANs, and offer additional connectivity, say for for access points. But, even this versatile powerful configuration does have its downsides.
The setup for this Router on a Stick setup can be described with the following:
1. Incoming upstream (WAN) VLAN networks should be untagged on the interface/port it comes into switch (VLAN 2 in this case)
2. Main router interface/port on the switch should be tagged with WAN and LAN networks, except for the default LAN, which should be untagged. This gives you local access to the router
3. All other interfaces/ports on the router should be untagged for endpoint devices that do not intend to carry multiple networks, or tagged if they intend to carry more networks.
4. On the router (RPi 5 on OpenWrt in this case), all networks (WAN and LAN) should be tagged, except the default LAN, to provide local access, as noted in point 2 above.
Router on a Stick configurations are quite common setups for consumer routers, more often than you would think. It was only until this researching this video topic did I realize my test routers were router on a stick configurations. Watch the video above to understand the full implications of this setup, and how to go about making one yourself!
Links
Router on a Stick (wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router_on_a_stick
Aruba 1930 Switch
https://a.co/d/j5lpJL7
Raspberry Pi 5
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/
OpenWrt
https://openwrt.org/
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:40 Router on a Stick Explanation
02:03 Router on a Stick Diagram
02:45 Router on a Stick Requirements
03:13 Your Router is on a Stick
04:11 Ekster Promotion
06:35 Demo
15:45 Testing Configuration
17:45 Why Do Companies Make Router on a Stick?
18:45 Outro
Tags
#roas #vlan #openwrt #raspberrypi #networkswitch #networkingtips #homenetwork