Is it safe to use a single switch for multiple subnets?
- by George Bailey
For a moment, forget about whether the following is typical or easy to explain, is it safe and sound?
Internet
|
ISP supplied router x.x.x.1 (public subnet)
|
switch-------------------------------------+
| (public subnet) | (public subnet)
BVI router (switch with an access list) NAT router
| (public subnet) | (private subnet 192.168.50.1)
+--------------------------------switch----+ (both subnets)
| |
computer with IP 192.168.50.2 ------+ +----computer with IP x.x.x.2
I don't plan to implement this setup, but I am curious about it.
The 50.2 computer may send a packet to the x.2 computer, but it will use 50.1 as the router, since 50.2 knows that the subnet is different. Would this result in the packet being received twice by the x.2 machine, first directly through the switch, second by way of the two routers?
Do you see any problems with this aside from how confusing it is, and that it would put one switch doing the work of two subnets?
