VLANs and unmanaged switches

[John Blakley]

All,

I have the following scenario that I need help with, and I'd like to get opinions on how others would handle this.

I have an SVI on VLAN99 for printers and address 10.125.99.5/24

I have other devices on VLAN1 that will be able to see printers since it's a L3 switch and it's in routing.

I have this scenario:

User A, Printer A, and Copier A is connected a a switch at the users desk. The switch is unmanaged. User A's workstation is DHCP (vlan1), the printer has a static address 10.125.99.50, and copier A has a static of 10.131.5.5 (VLAN1). The only device that's VLAN99 is the printer, BUT since this is an unmanaged switch, I run into two problems:

I can't change the port on the users switch to an access port for VLAN99

I can't change the port that the user's switch connects to to an access port on VLAN99 either (all other devices will stop working).

I can trunk the port, but I have no way of telling the printer that it's on vlan99.

The only thought that I have is one of these:

Either statically assign the printer to the VLAN1 address and then keep the printer just for that user on that vlan. (This negates what I want to really do.)

Replace the switch with one that can tag vlan's.

Wire a jack directly to the patch panel for the printer and copiers (this probably should have been done a long time ago.)

How would you guys handle this? I can't switch these printers over to the new vlan until I find a solid solution.

Thanks,

--John

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

John

Your'e 2 main problems are

1) switch is at users desk. As you say printers and copiers should be connected back to your patch panels.

2) switch is unmanaged

So if i couldn't replace the switch and i couldn't repatch back i would move the printer into vlan 1. It's not ideal by any means and it's the worse solution if you end up with a flat vlan 1 everywhere.

Note the ideal solution is to patch back as you have already said. A switch really should only be in secure rooms and not at peoples desks but you know this :)

Jon

[John Blakley]

Thanks Jon

I know. :-) This is still part of that same project that I've been working on for a while. I think we're going to have to leave those printers (hopefully not that many) on vlan 1. I wanted to verify my thinking though.

Thanks!

John