Use unused LAN ports as switch ports for networking possible

[MartijnNL80]

Hi all,
I have got a question about unused nics on a proxmox server, i don't use the server as a firewall/router (eg PFsense) because that is handeled by my fibre Fritz box and im happy with that.
My Proxmox server is running on a Topton Intel 13th gen 8505 mini pc with 8x Intel I226-V nics and i'm only using 1 port so the other 7 are doing nothing.
Is it possible to make those 7x 2,5Gbe nics act as just simple switch ports that connect to the rest of my network?
If yes, i can re-use my 5 port 2,5Gbe switch that is standing next to the Proxmox server for something else and save some power.
Ant help is appreciated.
Cheers!

 

[Dunuin]

You can bridge multiple NICs to vmbr0 to do that. But I don't think it will save power. 7 additional busy general purpose NICs should consume way more power than a dumb 5-port switch.

 

[MartijnNL80]

You can bridge multiple NICs to vmbr0 to do that. But I don't think it will save power. 7 additional busy general purpose NICs should consume way more power than a dumb 5-port switch.

Hi Dumuin,
Thanks for the reply, i will defo give that a try and measure the power consumption.
I can repurpose the switch on the first floor where there is a older 8x1Gbe/2x10Gbe switch thats kinda power hungry.
Cheers!

 

[MartijnNL80]

You can bridge multiple NICs to vmbr0 to do that. But I don't think it will save power. 7 additional busy general purpose NICs should consume way more power than a dumb 5-port switch.

Hi,
I have bridged all other nics to vmbr0 (see below picture) but when i plug devices in the other nics they do not get an ip while one of these nics is connected to my switch and so router wich is the DHCP.
Is this the right way to use the other 7 ports as extra switchports that have acces to the same network that the proxmox server is running on?
Rgds,
Martijn

 

[pysniakm]

Hi,
I have bridged all other nics to vmbr0 (see below picture) View attachment 58201but when i plug devices in the other nics they do not get an ip while one of these nics is connected to my switch and so router wich is the DHCP.
Is this the right way to use the other 7 ports as extra switchports that have acces to the same network that the proxmox server is running on?
Rgds,
Martijn

Hi, I have the same situation - same device except with 6 ports, added all ports to the bridge but a laptop plugged in to one of free Eth ports will only communicate if I set its Eth to static IP+gateway+DNS. Otherwise, it fails to get a DHCP share from gateway/router making it an useless "switch". Did you resolve this?

edit: took some trial and error but this worked fine - devices plugged in to bridged ports are now able to get DHCP lease from gateway (ISP router), simply comment out all iface entries as in the example below, that is all. The nice thing is, the proxmox is seen as 192.168.2.220 (static IP) from any port, while remaining ports will still get DHCP from the gateway entry.

/etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

#iface enp3s0 inet manual
#iface enp4s0 inet manual    <----- comment out
#iface enp5s0 inet manual
#iface enp6s0 inet manual
#iface enp7s0 inet manual
#iface enp8s0 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
        address 192.168.2.220/24
        gateway 192.168.2.1
        bridge-ports enp3s0 enp4s0 enp5s0 enp6s0 enp7s0 enp8s0
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0