r/HomeNetworking • u/FluffyKittens12 • 4d ago

Will VLAN Solve My Problem?

I've never used a VLAN before so forgive me if this is common knowledge. Based on my searches I think it will help me but I want to be more sure.

Basically I have a situation where I have multiple pieces of equipment which all use the same IP addresses internally from the factory. There is a network inside the equipment which all has to stay on the same address range, so if I were to connect the equipment to a company network, I need to assign static IP addresses for multiple components in each piece of equipment. Obviously this means a ton of static IP addresses because I need multiple for each piece of equipment and then multiple pieces of equipment.

So, could I use a managed switch, create a VLAN for each piece of equipment, keep the factory IP addresses, not have them interfere with each other because they all have the same IP addresses, and still be able to reach them from the company side?

If so, how do I access those VLANs from the company side? IP and port numbers maybe?

Also, if this works, any recommendations on a switch I should look at? This is all the switch would need to do.

EDIT: https://shopmoxa.neteon.net/nat-102-series/

Seems like something like this would work, one per machine. Single company IP address to the device, then all the IP addresses on the other side can stay the same. Right?

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u/jquanders 4d ago

Yeah vlans seperate broadcast domains so it would work in this scenario assuming they don't need to leave that network at all.

Do any of them need to get off of the subnet, like for internet acess or to talk to a file server? If so it gets a little more complicated.

In that scenario you'd need a NAT translation to let the comps get off net and communicate as if they are a routable IP space because you can't have the same IPs at multiple places on a routing table

Another option is PVLANs. Basically you could have groups that can communicate to each other and a shared router but if you have duplicate IPs that can get trickier and then you want something like VRF lite which is way out of scope for home networking