Ethernet Network Switch

Many devices supported by OpenWrt contain an Ethernet network switch. Most switches are configurable and divers options are available. We require two software components:

1. a kind of a driver
2. a utility

• RTL8366/RTL8369 datasheet, notice that this is quite different from RTL8366RB or RTL8369S
• RealTek RTL8366RB, a 5-port Gigabit switch e.g. in the WR1043ND v1 or DIR-685
  • Upstream RTL8366RB DSA kernel driver this should become the default after incorporating kernel v4.19 or later
  • see all tickets concerning the Realtek RTL8366RB
    • e.g. Ticket 7977:Enhance rtl8366rb driver
    • e.g. Ticket 10202: Add support for port mirroring in rtl8366rb
  • see all changesets concerning the Realtek RTL8366RB
    • e.g. r36847: add port mirroring/monitoring capability to the RTL8366RB switch
• RealTek RTL8366S, e.g. in the DIR-825
• Realtek RTL8306SD/SDM FastEthernet, 6 Ports, 5x 100BASE-TX-PHYs e.g. in the ARV4518PW
• RTL8309G FastEthernet, 9 Ports, 8x 100BASE-TX-PHYs e.g. in the D-Link DIR-632

• AR8216 FastEthernet, 6 ports; found in Arcadyan ARV752DPW22, Netgear WNR2000v1, others
• AR8316 GigabitEthernet, e.g. in the RouterStation Pro, WBMR-HP-G300H, ...
• AR8228 + AR8229 FastEthernet: 7-Ports, 5x 100BASE-TX-PHYs
• AR8236 FastEthernet: 6-Ports, 5 x 100BASE-TX-PHYs
• AR8327 + AR8327N GigabitEthernet: 7Ports, 5x 1000Base-T-PHYs e.g. in the WR1043ND v2 (Atheros AR8327N-BL1A)
• AR8328 + AR8328N GigabitEthernet: 7Ports, 5x 1000Base-T-PHYs
• Atheros AR7240 built-in switch
• Atheros AR934X built-in switch

Note: Atheros Switch-Chips with the 'N' designation include the Hardware NAT function.

• r37650: brcm47xx: switch to kernel 3.10.4; This uses a new switch driver. The old ADMTEK Adm6996 switch is not supported any more.
• Broadcom BCM5325

• Vitesse have produced switch chips for 5+1 and 8+1 switches VSC7385, VSC7388, VSC7395 and VSC7398.
• Upstream DSA kernel driver for VSC7385, VSC7388, VSC7395 and VSC7398
• The Vitesse switch chips family were acquired by Micosemi who were then acquired by Microchip.
• Micochip will provide complete datasheets if you sign an NDA on their website

• TC2206

• IC+ IP17xx

• swconfig

• some Switches contain a functionality called “Hardware NAT”; support for this features has not yet been included into OpenWrt. Since the cpus used in CPE Routers are relatively slow, expect 2 to 4 times performance gain if you were to use Hardware NAT, e.g. without hardware NAT some router could achieve 400Mbit/s at full CPU load, with hardware NAT it could achieve 900Mbit/s at full CPU load. OpenWrt developer is supposed to have said, that implementing HW-NAT support would be unacceptably hacky to accomplish.