Hello everyone! I have four QNAP QSW-M2106-4C switches (one on each floor of my house). My home network is managed by a Netgear Orbi 971 system (router 971 and three 970 satellites). The Netgear 971 router is before the QNAP switches, and the Netgear 970 satellites are behind each of the QNAP switches, all connected via Cat 6 Ethernet. The Netgear’s Guest WLAN doesn’t work on the 970 satellites. Netgear indicates that a VLAN ID of 4091 must be configured to allow the Guest WLAN broadcast from the 971 router. When I try to create a VLAN ID of 4091 on the QSW-M2106-4C switches, the QNAP switch tells me that only VLANs from 2 to 4000 are allowed! I’m unable to create this Guest VLAN (Netgear Ethernet backhaul) for my Guest WLAQ. Otherwise, the main Wi-Fi works perfectly on my Netgear Orbi 971 router → QSW-M2106-4C switch → Netgear 971 satellites. Do you have a solution to this problem, or do I need to replace my QNAP switch? Or all the Netgear Orbi 970 equipment, which was very expensive…?
Theoretically, it should not make a difference what VLAN ID is used on the switch provided by the Netgear device are each on that VLAN. I don’t know how QNAP switches work but I regularly run traffic over Cisco switches where the VLAN ID of the incoming packets does not match the VLAN ID on the switch. The switch complains that there’s a mismatch but the traffic is passed. The packets are still tagged with the proper VLAN ID so the Netgear devices should communicate.
Think of the VLAN as nothing more than a long cable. It just happens to be going through your switch!
Now maybe QNAP switches insist on the VLAN ID on the packets match the VLAN ID of the switch port. I don’t know.
I do find it really odd that Netgear insists on such a high VLAN ID. The highest VLAN ID I have seen allowed in my experience is 4095. But I’ve seen a lot of switches that don’t get anywhere close to that number of VLANs.
Here is what I would try.
Create a VLAN on the switch - whatever number - it doesn’t matter. For example let’s use 100.
Add the appropriate ports on the switch to the VLAN. Make sure you add them as UNTAGGED. You don’t want tagging in this case.
Connect your satellites and your router to these ports.
It should work. Traffic coming from/to the Netgear devices will have a VLAN ID of 4091. The switch has a VLAN ID of 100, but it should not block the mismatch. It may complain but traffic should still flow.