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Using multiple LAN NICS as a basic un-managed switch ?

David Robinson

I'm configuring a fanless NUC that has 4 ethernet ports for basic home use (1 Subnet) and want to avoid adding any extra hardware (noise, power consumption, space, wires et..). I only need 3 wired ports ...1 will be used to connect to WAP and the other 2 I want to connect to a desktop PC and kodi Media Player via CAT6 cables to get stable 1000Mbps between the 2 devices and router.
If I bridge the 3 LAN nics will it work just like an unmanaged switch and simply pass all traffic at full speed ? Would the performance be equivalent or better than a cheap switch ?  

Basically just trying to reproduce what you get with a consumer grade router with 4 built in LAN ports using Sophos UTM on a fanless NUC (i3, 4GB RAM, 256GB mSATA, 4 x Realtek NICs)



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  • 0

    Yes, you can create a bridge between the 3 NIC's. Make sure to also create a firewall rule to allow traffic from the subnet to the same subnet, since any traffic going through the UTM must be allowed (even on a bridge) otherwise it will be blocked.

    I think a cheap switch might be faster since it will only operate on layer 2 while UTM kan go up all the way to the application layer (layer 7). However I think you'll not really notice the difference unless you frequently transfer large files between connected hosts.

  • 0 in reply to apijnappels

    Thank you for the informative answer...  can I ask for clarification on a few things

    1. Given that the bridging is still operating upto layer 7 and requires a firewall rule does this mean the result would be identical to using a different subnet for each LAN nic ?

    2. Does a bridge pass broadcasts ?

    3. This means that home routers with multiple nics must have a vSwitch incorporated in their firmware ... as far as I know they don't have a separate ROM it ?  Would it be fair to say that technically the unmanaged switch functionality could be incorporated via a feature request into UTM ?  The Dell server I experiment on has 8 quality Intel NICs and it seems intuitive that a vSwitch operating on  high end server with internal connections would be much faster than an external dedicated unit with much lower hardware specs ?  Also more efficient with less connections, wires etc ?n

    4.  Is anybody aware of a virtual appliance that can aggregate all the unused nics on an Esxi host into a fast 'software' switch ?

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  • 0 in reply to apijnappels

    Thank you for the informative answer...  can I ask for clarification on a few things

    1. Given that the bridging is still operating upto layer 7 and requires a firewall rule does this mean the result would be identical to using a different subnet for each LAN nic ?

    2. Does a bridge pass broadcasts ?

    3. This means that home routers with multiple nics must have a vSwitch incorporated in their firmware ... as far as I know they don't have a separate ROM it ?  Would it be fair to say that technically the unmanaged switch functionality could be incorporated via a feature request into UTM ?  The Dell server I experiment on has 8 quality Intel NICs and it seems intuitive that a vSwitch operating on  high end server with internal connections would be much faster than an external dedicated unit with much lower hardware specs ?  Also more efficient with less connections, wires etc ?n

    4.  Is anybody aware of a virtual appliance that can aggregate all the unused nics on an Esxi host into a fast 'software' switch ?

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  • 0 in reply to David Robinson

    1. Yes (firewall and rules wise), no different subnets do not route broadcasts

    2. Yes

    3. No, in fact most home routers only have 2 wired interfaces, 1 for WAN and 1 for LAN that is usually a little switch. I believe the (usually 5) NICS on a home router aren't manageable individually.

    4. ??