>I recommend you redesign your network around the ex2200 to act as your L3 core router. Thanks smicker.
I like this idea the most smicker (is this capitolized or lower case?), it seems that I would learn the most from doing this. Would I still be able to have that Internal network have access to the Cable modem for the internet?
I have connected a juniper router to my switch before via a truck port on each device and then set the gateway address on the router for each vlan on the switch (when I had multiple vlans on the switch). But I had some real difficulties making the router connect to the cable modem because of limitations in the cable modem adding a static route back to the router. I got it work in my home invironment with a customized software install of dd-wrt into a linksys, but at a production site I could not make their modem add and successfully use the static route back to the edge router.
So I would like to learn how to do it all in the switch and then still have a way for everyone to get to the Internet via the switch to the $50 modem.
Could you give me some idea of the commands I would need to use to make the ex2200-c the core router and still have the cients get to the Internet through the switch to the cable modem? I kind of thought that what we were already doing this when we added the
set vlans vlan-400 l3-interface vlan.400
But that shows you right there the depth of my understanding of routing, and especially how to implement it: limited, but trying to make headway.
What is really meant by the phrase 'core router' beyond using the l3-interface command? Since layer 3 in the OSI is where ip addressing comes into play (beyond layer 2 MAC adressing within one broadcast domain) I kind of thought that when we add this command, 'l3-interface', we are giving the ability of that vlan to be routing. And you stated that the loopback was a virtual layer 3 interface. So why can't the layer 3 vlan-400 route to the layer 3 loopback? This is were I thought that adding some kind of static route in the routing-table (a layer 3 map) would allow traffic destined for the loopback to be able to get to it and get back. But when you reminded me that directly connected addresses don't need to be explicity added to the table, I got confused. I understand the concept, but is the loopback directly connected? And if it is, then why can't vlan-400 traffic automatically find it?
So why would the vlan-400 not be able to route to the lo0 inside the switch at that point? I would really think it would be awsome if you could really explain this to me! I have studied the differenct engines inside the switch, the forwarding engine and the routing engine, but I just can't really get how you utilize them in the practical world. And how to make one of the engines be able to connect to the loopback which, as I think you said, is on layer 3 itself, but only virtually (does virutally require some special connecting statement to get l3-interface vlan-400 to communicate with the loopback virtual layer 3 interface?). I think answering this could be very valuable for many people because I think that this represents a lot of confusion and a common transifional understanding that I've seen reflected in many quesitons I have seen people asking. There is some internal logic here between forwarding, routing and the inner workings of Juniper devices that seem hidden to the general population of techies.
Also, I thought that core just kind of meant the position a device had in the scheme of things. I kind of get that the modem is now doing the routing and that you are suggesting that I have the switch take over this role.
Please be as decriptive as possible since I feel this is really an opportunity for me, and maybe others, to understand things more deeply. I really appreciate your time.
THANKS,
Robin Hood